Richneck shooting: Bodycam video shows aftermath of classroom attack on Abby Zwerner

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Newly unsealed body camera video shows the moments after a 6-year-old shot his first-grade teacher, Abby Zwerner, inside a Richneck Elementary School classroom in January 2023.

The video shows officers entering the classroom after the shooting. CBS 6 is sharing portions of the footage at the discretion of its parent company after determining the material provides important context to a case that has drawn national attention.

Authorities say the child can be heard cursing at officers and telling them he took the gun from his mother.

"My mom had that,” the child says in the video. “I stole that from my mom."

Zwerner, 25 at the time, and her students had fled the classroom after she was shot. Zwerner then collapsed in the school office while the boy remained inside the classroom with reading specialist Amy Kovac restrained him until officers arrived.

At one point, Kovac is heard saying she previously warned administrators about concerns involving the child.

"I told the AP that there was a threat earlier about it," Kovac says in the video.

Zwerner’s legal team previously said multiple school staff members, including Zwerner, approached Richneck's administration with concerns on the day of the shooting.

A search warrant previously obtained by News 3 said Kovac and a school administrator searched the student's backpack when the class when to recess, but they did not find a gun.

Richneck Shooting

TIMELINE: The shooting of Abby Zwerner at Richneck Elementary & the aftermath

Heather Eckstine

Kovac told investigators that after the class got back from recess, she heard a gunshot come from the classroom, and several children ran out. According to the warrant, Kovac also saw Zwerner run from the classroom, bleeding from the hand and chest.

Kovac went into the classroom and saw the 6-year-old standing by his desk with a gun on the floor next to him, the search warrant said.

In a statement released through an attorney shortly after the shooting, the child's family said their son "suffers from an acute disability and was under a care plan at the school that included his mother or father attending school with him and accompanying him to class every day." The week of the shooting was the first week they did not accompany him, according to the family.

In the days following the shooting, Newport News Public Schools acknowledged administrators had been warned that the child might have a weapon before the attack.

Watch previous: Abby Zwerner wins lawsuit against assistant principal liable in Richneck shooting

A jury awarded Zwerner $10 million in her civil lawsuit against the Newport News School Division and former Assistant Principal Ebony Parker last November, finding Parker failed to act on warnings that the student may have had a gun.

The child’s mother, Deja Taylor was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges.

Parker faced an unprecedented criminal child neglect trial in the spring, in which all charges were dismissed.

Watch previous: Ebony Parker’s child neglect charges in Richneck shooting dismissed by judge