Newport News police released bodycam video this week that shows officers walking into a first-grade classroom after a six-year-old shot his teacher, with the boy already restrained and quickly admitting a gun was still in the room.

The footage, captured by Officer Brian Torrez on January 6, 2023, at Richneck Elementary School, was unsealed by the court on October 6, 2026, and made public Tuesday. Court records refer to the child as J.T. Teacher Abby Zwerner was struck by the shot, nearly hit in the heart, and left with a bullet still in her chest.

The video now sits at the center of a public record that already includes a dismissed criminal case against a former administrator, a large civil judgment, and a federal prison term for the boy’s mother. For parents and law-and-order readers, the stakes are plain: how warnings were handled inside a public school, what adults did in the minutes after the gunfire, and what accountability followed.

The Daily Caller reported that reading specialist Amy Kovac was holding J.T. when officers entered. She told them the weapon was still there and that the child had just admitted having one.

Kovac’s words on the recording are direct.

"The gun is there. He just admitted that he had one,"

Sheriff’s deputies arrived as well. One announced that the gun had been found. Court documents said J.T. had taken the firearm from his mother’s purse that morning. Just The News reported the child declared on camera, "My mom had that! I stole that from my mom!"

Threats, profanity, and a classroom still in chaos

The bodycam does not show a quiet surrender. J.T. shouted at Kovac and at officers while still being held. He used language most adults would not expect from a first-grader, and he kept going after adults told him to stop.

At one point he yelled, "Both y’all want a f****** piece of me, b****?!" He later added, "If you want a piece of me, come get it on, b****," and "I don’t care if you call backup. I don’t care if I go to jail, b****."

Kovac answered him in the moment. "That’s not how we speak to each other," she said. She pressed further: "We know you know that language, and you know that’s not appropriate," and "Mrs. Kovac’s NOT happy with that." When she finally got up, she told him, "You’re done."

The boy also directed officers toward the gun with another insult, saying, "It’s over there, w****." He flipped Kovac off during the exchange. Kovac later testified that he punched her. On the recording, a punch sound is heard while Torrez’s hands briefly cover the camera.

Torrez told Kovac she did not have to leave immediately. "You can stay for now," he said, adding, "If you feel comfortable." Kovac stayed long enough to explain the day’s modified schedule, noting it was the first week without the boy’s mother in class and that pickup was at 2:30. She also told officers she had already flagged a threat earlier.

"I told the [assistant principal] that there was a threat earlier about it,"

That single line connects the bodycam scene to the larger fight over who knew what before the shot was fired. It also echoes other recent cases in which schools faced hard questions after violence reached the classroom, including coverage of an Apalachee High School shooter who pleaded guilty on dozens of counts.

How the shooting unfolded inside the school

Kovac heard the gunshot from down the hall, found Zwerner bleeding, and called 911. Officers and deputies flooded the first-grade classroom. The gun still held seven additional rounds when it was recovered. J.T. said he was not hurt. A police sergeant later escorted him out.

Zwerner’s injuries were severe. She spent almost two weeks in the hospital, underwent six surgeries, and has been unable to maintain full use of her left hand. The bullet remains in her chest. Fox News reported the weapon was a 9-millimeter handgun and that the round passed through her left hand before lodging near her heart. Bodycam from the medical response captured paramedics treating her as she struggled to breathe and was carried out on a stretcher, with a paramedic telling her, "You're going to be okay."

Zwerner later described the moment to PBS News in stark terms.

"I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven. But then it all got black. And so, I then thought I wasn’t going there. And then my next memory is I see two co-workers around me and I process that I’m hurt and they’re putting pressure on where I’m hurt."

In court testimony tied to the civil case, she said the last thing she remembered at the school was believing she had died. Families tracking campus violence have seen similar aftermath stories, including a Staten Island preschool case built around classroom video of alleged harm to a young child.

Criminal case against the assistant principal collapses

Former Richneck assistant principal Ebony Parker was indicted by a special grand jury in 2023 on eight counts of child neglect. The bodycam footage was admitted into evidence during her trial in May. Circuit Court Judge Rebecca M. Robinson later dismissed all eight charges.

That dismissal closed the criminal path against Parker. It did not end civil exposure. Zwerner was awarded $10 million in a lawsuit against Parker. Just The News noted a jury determination that the school ignored warnings the child had a gun. Fox News reported Zwerner had filed a $40 million lawsuit alleging Parker failed to act on multiple staff warnings.

After the May trial, the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot moved to unseal the video, citing the First Amendment. The court allowed distribution on the condition that the child’s face remain blurred. Newport News police then released the Torrez bodycam to the public.

Institutional failure arguments in school cases often turn on exactly this sequence: staff warnings, administrative response, and whether prosecutors can prove neglect beyond a civil money judgment. Related coverage of a Bellingham man charged over alleged aid in a Canadian school attack has kept public attention on how adults around school violence are charged, or not charged.

Mother’s federal case and custody after the shooting

Court records and later reporting tied the gun to the boy’s mother, Deja Nicole Taylor, then 29. She served federal prison time for child neglect and for lying on a background-check form when she bought the gun. She was released in February. The boy is now in the custody of his great-grandfather.

Authorities have not publicly detailed a motive for the shooting itself. Investigators and the public record have focused instead on access to the firearm, the classroom response, and the separate tracks of criminal and civil liability for the adults around the child.

Newport News Schools posted the day after the shooting that the district was "deeply saddened by the events at Richneck Elementary School" and that "our hearts our with our Richneck family during this difficult time." The school closed Monday and Tuesday, January 9 and 10. Support resources were pointed out to families in the same message.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said his administration had already offered help.

"My administration has offered assistance in response to the shooting at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News and stand at the ready to help in any way we can. I am continuing to monitor the situation and am praying for the continued safety of all students and the community."

What the video changes in the public record

Until this week, much of the country knew the broad outline: a six-year-old shot a teacher in Newport News, the teacher survived catastrophic injuries, an administrator beat criminal charges, and a civil jury still put a heavy price tag on the failure to act. The Torrez bodycam adds the raw audio of the minutes after the shot, the admission, the location of the gun, the profanity, and the staff member still trying to impose basic order.

It also locks in procedural facts that matter for conservatives who track school safety. The firearm came from a purse at home. Seven rounds remained. A reading specialist says she had already reported a threat. Criminal counts against the assistant principal were wiped out by a judge even after the footage went before a trial court. A separate civil verdict still produced a $10 million award for Zwerner.

Readers following youth-linked violence have watched the culture around campus aggression shift in ugly ways, from serious shootings to viral clips of students filmed reenacting political killings in school hallways. The Richneck recording is different in kind. It is not theater. It is a first-grade room, a wounded teacher, and a six-year-old telling officers he does not care about jail.

Mass-casualty gun cases involving children continue to drive national debate as well, including the Montana shooting that killed eight relatives, including four children. Richneck remains a single-victim classroom shooting with a surviving teacher, a child offender too young for ordinary adult prosecution, and a paper trail of adult decisions now fully exposed on video.

Open questions investigators and the public still face

Authorities have not publicly confirmed a minute-by-minute timeline of every warning given to administrators before the shot. No public results have been released in this package about the precise time of day the gunfire erupted inside the classroom. Investigators and courts have already had to determine how the gun left a purse and entered a first-grade room; the bodycam now shows how quickly the child admitted that fact under pressure.

The legal system treated the adults on three tracks: federal prosecution of the mother for neglect and a false background-check statement, a state child-neglect indictment of the assistant principal that ended in dismissal, and a civil suit that produced a multimillion-dollar award for the wounded teacher. The boy himself is in a relative’s custody, not a standard criminal pipeline.

For a conservative audience, the policy pressure points are familiar. Secure storage and truthful firearms paperwork are not optional. School administrators who receive threat reports need clear duties and real consequences. When criminal charges fall away, civil juries and public records become the remaining tools for accountability. Unsealing bodycam under a First Amendment motion is one way the public finally sees what staff and police saw in real time.

Zwerner’s own words still cut through the procedure. She thought she was dead, then woke to coworkers pressing on her wound. The city closed the school for two days. The governor offered state help. Years later, the camera footage is what forces the rest of the country to watch the aftermath without a press filter.

When a six-year-old can fire a round in a public classroom and then taunt the adults holding him, every layer of adult responsibility gets tested in public. The law can dismiss counts, pen checks, and blur a child’s face. It cannot blur the duty that failed before the trigger was pulled.