Woman Whose Son Shot Teacher Gets More Prison

The mother of a 6-year-old who shot his teacher in Virginia was sentenced Friday to two years in prison for felony child neglect, nearly a year after her son used her gun to critically wound the educator. Friday's sentencing was the second time Deja Taylor was held to account for the classroom shooting in Newport News. The state sentence she received Friday from Circuit Court Judge Christopher Papile was stiffer than what is called for in state sentencing guidelines and harsher than a joint sentencing recommendation of six months that prosecutors and Taylor's lawyers had agreed to in a plea deal, the AP reports.

Taylor was sentenced in November to 21 months in federal prison for using marijuana while owning a gun, which is prohibited under US law. The combination of her state and federal sentences amounts to a total punishment of nearly four years behind bars. Taylor's son told authorities he got to the 9mm handgun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mother's purse. He concealed the weapon in his backpack and then his pocket before shooting his teacher, Abby Zwerner, in front of her first-grade class. Taylor initially told investigators she had secured her gun with a trigger lock, but investigators said they never found one.

Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital and has endured five surgeries to restore motion to her left hand, per the AP. She struggles to put on clothes or tie shoes. She is suing Newport News Public Schools for $40 million, arguing that administrators ignored warnings the boy had a gun. Zwerner no longer works for the school system and is no longer teaching. She said she loves children but is now scared to work with them. She attends therapy and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, while also suffering from depression and anxiety. "I contend daily with deep emotional scars," Zwerner told the judge during Taylor's federal sentencing.