The 6-year-old psychopath
You may have come across this video of a 6-year-old who shot and almost killed his teacher:
The Virginian-Pilot obtained the video from Officer Brian Torrez’s camera after a court order unsealed it. On the tape, reading specialist Amy Kovac is holding the boy in a bear hug while he tells police he stole the 9mm from his mother’s purse.
“My mom had that,” the boy says, pointing toward the weapon. “I stole that from my mom.”
In the footage, he also says he does not care if he goes to jail and relentlessly taunts officers on the scene.
“If you want a piece of me, come get it on, b****,” the boy says. “I don’t care if you call backup. I don’t care if I go to jail, b****.”
“We know you know that language — and you know that’s not appropriate,” the reading specialist said. “Mrs. Kovac’s NOT happy with that.”
You might well ask why the focus on bad language, when the child had already nearly killed a teacher? Perhaps the reading specialist was shellshocked by the entire episode.
It seems this child was already lost at the age of 6. Can a child who clearly has been exposed to terrible parenting be saved if rescued at that age? I would say it depends. It depends on whether he’s a psychopath. Let’s just say I wouldn’t want him mainstreamed. But what to do with a child who’s already shown such a propensity for evil?
The day of the shooting, multiple warnings that the boy had a gun were ignored:
Former assistant principal Ebony Parker was charged with eight felony counts of child neglect, one for each round in the gun, after prosecutors said she ignored repeated warnings and never ordered a search of the boy.
On May 21, 2026, just four days into the trial, Circuit Judge Rebecca Robinson dismissed every count, ruling that Parker’s inaction was not a crime under Virginia law.
The civil jury assigned her some level of responsibility with their decision, finding her grossly negligent.
The boy’s mother, Deja Nicole Taylor, was also charged. She bought the 9mm, and on the morning of the shooting the boy took it from her purse on a dresser, put it in his backpack, and brought it to school.
The shooting happened in January of 2023, three and a half years ago. The boy would be at least 9 years old now. He was placed with his great-grandfather, and I have no idea how he’s doing now.
I want to add a personal note, though. Reading about this boy brought up a memory for me. In the year 1965, I had a boyfriend who worked at a camp for poor children from Manhattan. The camp was rural and run by social workers. I visited him there and was shocked to notice that a certain number of the very young boys – who were probably around 6 or 7 years old – were already acting in an absolutely vile manner. The form it took was that, when female counselors (teenagers or women) passed by, the boys would grab at their private parts and shout obscenities.
I have no recollection of what was done to the boys, if anything. But I do recall their behavior – and this was sixty years ago.
With real psychiatric care gone my guess the kid is a hopeless cause.
Would be interesting is those camp kids history could all be collected. Would be the large percentage are in or out of prisons. Some percentage might be dead by now.
If a crowd of 6-7 year old boys was behaving like that, learned behavior rather than individual psychopathy would appear to be the issue. Young children, like sponges, will absorb whatever is around them. Like Skip, I’d find it interesting to have follow-up histories on those young boys—though it is probably not possible to compile them.
Ditto to find out what the 6 year old shooter is like three years later.
I am not knowledgeable enough to have any idea if psychopaths and sociopaths are “born that way,” trained by their environments to behave wrongly, or both. I know from dealing with a few adult sociopaths that there is no good way to deal with them; staying completely away if possible is the best course.
I’m of the opinion that the vice principal should face tort liability and severe administrative sanction, but I’m not seeing how her stupidity amounts to criminal ‘child neglect’. The eight count indictment also tells you the prosecutor was scamming around and neither the substantive criminal law in Virginia nor the rules of criminal procedure prevented it. (There is a crime in New York law nominated ‘Endangering the Welfare of a Child’ – which means to be in default of supervisory responsibilities over a child. That might apply, but being in default on one day in regard to one youth do not eight counts make).
And, again, it’s an indictment of the Virginia court system that this case was not disposed of two years ago.
Can it be said, if metaphorically, that the kid’s neural pathways have been permanently grooved? Ditto those at the camp?
Well, in the bad ol’ days such boys would be taken out and have the shit beaten out of them by those in charge or by their older compatriots. Honestly, I think that is the only treatment that even comes close to working for sociopaths of these tender years. Physical punishment doesn’t build a conscience into them, which they probably never will have, but it teaches them social circumspection as a matter of pain avoidance.
Let’s play “Spot the Psycho”….
“Mamdani and Hochul’s perverted priorities over shot illegal immigrant gangbanger”—
https://nypost.com/2026/10/09/opinion/mamdani-and-hochuls-perverted-priorities-over-shot-illegal-immigrant-gangbanger/
Genuinely insane psychopaths can not be cured by a beating because they do not feel fear or other negative emotions. Consequently, they can not fear punishment, and they can not learn from loss.
One test was set up with a large set of people, fixed at the beginning to allow them to win always, and then changed. People learned it had changed more or less quickly, but not psychopaths. Since they had won that way before, it obviously would still work.
Oh, kind of like Western European / EU / “liberal” Anglophone governments? Along with all those globalist elites?…
(Actually, though, I’m being dishonest here, since the goal of the above is, in fact, national, state, municipal, civic and cultural destruction—or as they say, “destruction and national, etc., suicide is a feature, NOT a bug”.)
‘”We Did Not Follow Your Insane Migration Policies”: Slovak MEP Crushes Brussels Bureaucrats Over Mass Crime, Riots’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/we-did-not-follow-your-insane-migration-policies-slovak-mep-crushes-brussels
I suppose there is some hope for the kid – if he is in a stable home life now, and his male relations are serious about seeing that he is firmly and consistently disciplined.
There is a child whom I know of because she was taken in and formally adopted by relatives of mine. She came out of a horrible situation – mother a drug addict, absent father, was in the custody of a grandmother whose resident boyfriend may have been molesting her. Anyway, the child was pretty bright but did have some serious behavioral issues and was … given to tell lies. Very convincing lies, as she is pretty smart. We were actually rather wary of her, because of this. (She lives in another state with her adoptive parents, so we saw this at a distance.) We held our breath, as she went through some stormy and rather rebellious patches as a teenager … but to our surprise, she did not get pregnant or work up any record as a juvenile offender … and is now in her mid-twenties. In college, and now into country music and the rodeo circuit, to judge from her social media page. I last saw her two years ago, with her adoptive father, and they seemed to have a solid, supportive and mutually respectful relationship. So there is some hope for the boy – if he is not an outright psychopath. As I said to my daughter – when your expectations are low, it leaves room for a pleasant surprise.
That’s certainly encouraging.
Thanks, Sarge…
– – – – – – –
But back to “Spot the Psycho”:
“Did Biden’s DOJ Reclassify Documents to Build a Case Against Trump?”—
https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2026/10/11/did-biden-doj-reclassify-documents-to-peg-trump-via-obama-russiagate-attack-dog-n4958203
Opening graf:
[Emphasis mine; Barry M.]
unfortunately, single parent households headed by women are incubators for criminals. That’s what the government pays for and that’s what they get.