Mother of Virginia Child Who Shot Teacher Sentenced to 21 Months for Using Marijuana While Owning Gun

The mother of a 6-year-old boy who shot his teacher in Virginia was sentenced Wednesday to 21 months in prison for using marijuana while owning a firearm, which is illegal under U.S. law.

Deja Taylor’s son took her handgun to school and shot Abby Zwerner in her first-grade classroom in January, seriously wounding the educator. Investigators later found nearly an ounce of marijuana in Taylor’s bedroom and evidence of frequent drug use in her text messages and paraphernalia.

Deja Taylor

Abby Zwerner

Taylor’s sentencing in a U.S. District Court offered the first measure of accountability for January’s shooting, which added to the national dialogue about gun violence and roiled the military shipbuilding city of Newport News.

Taylor, 26, still faces a separate sentencing in December on the state level for felony child neglect. She pleaded guilty in August to felony child neglect in a Newport News courtroom. {snip}

Zwerner is suing the school system for $40 million, alleging that administrators ignored multiple warnings that the boy had a gun. {snip}

{snip}

Federal prosecutors in Virginia argued in court filings that Taylor’s “chronic, persistent and … life-affecting abuse extends this case far beyond any occasional and/or recreational use.”

{snip}

“This case is not a marijuana case,” they wrote. “It is a case that underscores the inherently dangerous nature and circumstances that arise from the caustic cocktail of mixing consistent and prolonged controlled substance use with a lethal firearm.”

{snip}

Taylor’s attorneys had asked the judge for probation and home confinement, according to court filings. Her attorneys said Taylor was a victim of domestic abuse and had experienced several miscarriages and postpartum depression. They argued Taylor needs counseling for issues that include schizoaffective disorder, a condition that shares symptoms with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

{snip}

They also said she needs treatment for marijuana addiction.

{snip}

Taylor’s grandfather has had full custody of her son, now age 7, since the shooting, according to court documents.

The boy told authorities he obtained the gun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mom’s purse. His mother told police that normally she stored the gun in a lock box or her purse with a trigger lock in place, according to a search warrant.

{snip}

Investigators, however, said they couldn’t find a trigger lock or a lock box during searches of Taylor’s home or her mother’s home.

Immediately after the shooting, the child told a reading specialist who restrained him: “I shot that (expletive) dead” and “I got my mom’s gun last night,” according to search warrants.

It was not the first time Taylor’s gun was fired in public, prosecutors wrote. Taylor shot at her son’s father in December after seeing him with his girlfriend.

Sometime after her son shot his teacher, Taylor smoked two blunts, prosecutors added. She also failed drug tests while awaiting sentencing on the federal charges.