Newly Released Video Reveals Disturbing Moments After 6-Year-Old Shot Virginia Teacher in 2023

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — Newly released police body camera footage is casting a harsh new light on one of the most shocking school shootings in recent memory: the day a 6-year-old first-grader shot his teacher inside a Virginia elementary school classroom.

The footage, unsealed by a judge more than three years after the incident, shows the chaotic moments after the Jan. 6, 2023, shooting of teacher Abigail “Abby” Zwerner at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. It also captures something many viewers have found almost as unsettling as the shooting itself: a deeply troubled child lashing out at nearly every adult around him.

In the video, a reading specialist is seen physically restraining the boy inside the classroom while officers rush in to secure the weapon. The handgun had jammed after the shooting, leaving additional rounds still inside.

The child, who was 6 years old at the time, repeatedly curses at police officers and the educator holding him. At one point he threatens the officers, challenging them to fight him. In another exchange, he tells officers he does not care if they call for backup and does not care if he goes to jail.

The contrast is stark.

While adults calmly try to determine whether he has been injured and secure a crime scene that moments earlier had been a first-grade classroom, the child continues hurling obscenities and insults.

The footage also contains a statement that would become one of the video’s most talked-about moments. Asked about the gun, the boy tells officers that it belonged to his mother and says he took it from her.

What has struck many viewers is how small he appears.

The boy is being held by an educator who is trying to keep him from hurting himself or others. Court testimony later revealed that the reading specialist, Amy Kovac, was among the staff members who responded immediately after the shooting. Reports from court proceedings indicated the boy even struck Kovac during the struggle to control him.

The video shows no frightened child crying for his parents.

Instead, it shows a youngster speaking with the anger, profanity and defiance of someone far older. The language is so extreme that many news organizations censored large portions of it when reporting on the footage.

The shooting itself remains one of the most extraordinary cases in modern American education.

Authorities said the child pulled a handgun from his pocket during class and shot Zwerner. The bullet passed through her hand before becoming lodged in her chest. She survived but later testified about the physical and emotional toll of the attack.

Because Virginia law does not permit criminal prosecution of a child that young, the boy was never charged. His mother, however, was later sentenced in connection with the firearm. Zwerner ultimately won a $10 million civil judgment after jurors concluded school officials ignored multiple warnings that the child may have had a gun before the shooting.

For years, the public knew the broad outline of what happened that day.

Now, with the release of the body camera footage, people are seeing something far more personal and heartbreaking: not just a crime scene, but a glimpse of a first-grader who appeared consumed by rage, surrounded by adults trying desperately to contain a situation that should never have happened inside an elementary school classroom.