The six-year-old student who shot his teacher in the US earlier this year, boasted about the incident saying “I shot [her] dead”, unsealed court documents show.

While being restrained after the shooting at a Virginia school, the boy is said to have admitted “I did it”, adding “I got my mom’s gun last night”.

His teacher, Abigail “Abby” Zwerner - who survived - filed a $40m (£31.4m) lawsuit earlier this year.

The boy has not been charged.

The boy’s mother, however, Deja Taylor, has been charged with felony child neglect and misdemeanour recklessly leaving a loaded firearm as to endanger a child.

In Ms Zwerner’s lawsuit, filed in April, she accuses school officials of gross negligence for ignoring warning signs and argues the defendants knew the child "had a history of random violence

The documents also mention another incident with the same student while he was in kindergarten. A retired teacher told police he started “choking her to the point she could not breathe”.

  • howlongisleft@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    but I don’t think kids like him go from “literally a psychopath” to “normal adult”

    Not with that attitude they don’t. Do you really think a 6 year old is beyond help?
    They need to be removed from the parents, given proper psychiatric help and support, and placed with a loving family that can help them manage whatever issues they have.
    I have a feeling that won’t happen though and part of the reason for this is because people believe that small children cannot be helped.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Do you really think a 6 year old is beyond help?

      The real question here is “are you willing to bet someone’s life on it?”

      • howlongisleft@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You’re betting someone’s life on it no matter what.
        I’m not willing to give up on someone, especially a child, just because of what might happen.

        • tigerhawkvok@startrek.website
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          1 year ago

          Definitely betting one life vs. maybe betting several. It’s a version of the trolley problem. There isn’t a right answer, unfortunately - though I personally would move the kid to professional full time psychiatric care in a “hope for the best, plan for the worst” sort of thing. Especially since I don’t think kids are inherently more valuable than adults.

    • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      There are 6 year olds that are psychopaths and this is likely one of them.

      The worst part is treatment is not a guarantee they can be integrated into society.

      It’s tragic for everyone involved but it is true, some people are just missing certain wiring, and being placed in a “loving home” can just mean more bodies and a confused 6 year old not understanding why it’s bad that they killed their parents because they got sent to timeout.

      • Elderos@lemmings.world
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        1 year ago

        Absolutely. I don’t feel like commenting this whole comment section because this is a hard subject, but “psychopathy” is not a learned trait, and childs can absolutely do some very dark things. I think most people just can’t believe that a human, let alone such a young one, could be so fucking detached and “appear” evil, but yeah, there are humans out there that are like lizards, they just don’t adverse it.

      • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        this is likely one of them.

        This is wrong, most likely they were a normal baby who got fucked up by his fucked up parents. Is it possible they were a born psychopath? Of course it’s possible, but statistically speaking they were born fine. All we know is a kid with exceptionally shitty parents did something exceptionally shitty. No reason to speculate they were born evil or whatever.

        • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Are kids autistic because of shitty parents? This isn’t about the kid being evil, this is about the high chance, given the kids history, that the child does not have a typical neurological makeup.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      I absolutely agree, I didn’t really say he can’t be helped, I was responding to a comment about him belonging in a home where they would help him. It was more about the fact that he will absolutely get worse if left to his parents.

    • new_acct_who_dis@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t think anyone thinks a 6 yo can’t be helped. But where’s the funding for this?

      We gut anything related to education or healthcare, force people to be parents, and even childless people are struggling to care for themselves.

      Free options for care are probably going to be Christian focused, further screwing the kid up.

      What is honestly the solution here?

    • Nastybutler@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      and placed with a loving family that can help them manage whatever issues they have.

      I’ve seen that movie several times. Doesn’t end well for the parents

        • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Fun fact: there’s more than 1 article for this story.

          Anyone who’s been paying attention to this series of events will likely conclude similarly.