6-year-old Black Boy Shoots Teacher, Then Behaves Psychotically on Bodycam

“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians,” warned intellectual Thomas Sowell, “who must be civilized before it is too late.” And much we’ve seen for many years now raises a question:

Is it already too late?

With video-recording devices everywhere today, we get to witness little barbarians regularly. Few cases are as distressing, however, as newly released bodycam footage of a six-year-old black boy who shot his teacher. Because its most shocking aspect wasn’t even the shooting, but the child’s after-the-fact behavior.

That is, while being held by another school official, he could be heard cursing at her, and others, for two minutes like a seasoned 19-year-old gang-banger. The incident points to a larger problem, too, in the black community — and in our wider society.

The Mad Seed

Reporting on the story last Wednesday, the New York Post wrote:

The 6-year-old Virginia boy who shot his teacher in the chest in class yelled “f–k you, bitch” at an educator who was trying to restrain him and threatened to fight cops, disturbing bodycam video immediately after the attack shows.

The first-grader, identified in court only as J.T., is seen threatening officers and swearing a blue streak after police were scrambled to the classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia.

“Both y’all want a f–king piece of me, b—h?!” the boy tells the officers, body camera footage from Officer Brian Torrez, obtained by the Virginian-Pilot and the Daily Press, shows.

The video was taken after J.T. shot his teacher, Abby Zwerner, in front of 16 students in their first grade class on Jan. 6, 2023 [and was just recently released via court order].

In the footage, he is told to “stop” by reading specialist Amy Kovac, who rushed into the classroom after the shooting and held the boy down in a bear hug.

“F–k you, b—h,” J.T. tells Kovac.

The video shows police finding the … 9 mm Taurus handgun on the floor about 15 to 20 feet from the boy.

The defiant boy can also be heard saying “I don’t care if you call back up. I don’t care if I go to jail, b****.”

“I stole that from my mom,” the boy readily confessed, referencing the gun he used in the shooting. (Video below; language warning.)

As for the victim, Zwerner, she was shot in the hand and chest, but survived her injuries.

Brother From Another Mother?

J.T.’s case is somewhat reminiscent of a 2018 incident, one which was also caught on video and went viral. This one featured a young white boy, 10 to 12 years old, causing trouble in an undisclosed park. The denouement occurred when he was confronted by the park manager. Instead of being contrite or at least cowed, he got in the grown man’s face. He swore and got aggressive — then he actually began throwing punches at the official. Under assault, the manager finally defended himself and pushed the brat to the ground. Little tough guy proceeded to burst out crying like a baby and acted as if he were the aggrieved party.

(Note: I can no longer find the video online. But the story is here.)

I mentioned Park-crier Kid a few years ago in “Our Little Barbarians.” I also cited restaurateurs who’d announced that they would disallow children under 10 from dining at their establishment. The problem, explained Nettie’s House of Spaghetti in New Jersey, was that many kids hadn’t been disciplined. They’d cause mayhem in the restaurant.

A Moral Crisis

So what can be said about our little barbarians? Clearly, there’s a systemic problem, a deep cultural malaise that affects parenting, schooling, psychological counseling, and everything else. This said, it would be intellectually dishonest to pretend as if this malaise plagues all groups equally.

And returning to six-year-old J.T., he reflects something black commentator Jason Whitlock has lamented: the “ghetto” mentality. That is, an unwillingness among many black Americans to embrace virtuous behavior because they view it as comprising “white norms.”

Addressing this phenomenon, writer Vince Coyner stated Tuesday:

This six-year-old should be a wakeup call. When we see a little boy who, through either instruction or osmosis, has such anti-social behavior problems, we need to recognize that he wasn’t born that way. He was indoctrinated by a culture that no longer even pretends to conform to the norms that made America so successful. That’s a problem. Not only for the child, his family and his community, but for America as well.

Yet this phenomenon is much as with out-of-wedlock births. Approximately 69 percent of black American babies are born outside of marriage. Among non-Hispanic whites the rate is about 26 percent. Much better? Yes. But it’s still too high. (Note that the black rate was about 17 percent in 1940 and the white rate only around 2 percent.)

Likewise, white kids’ behavior may be better — but it still pales in comparison to that of children a century ago. So what has changed systemically?

The Remedy

The answer lies in one word: virtue — that set of objectively good moral habits. As Sowell warned, babies are born little barbarians; some observers even describe them as tiny “sociopaths.” Regardless, parents’ job is to civilize them, make them the type of people who can sustain civilization. This involves modeling virtue and cultivating it, the latter via moral teaching; incentivizing good behavior; and, yes, punishing misbehavior. If this civilizing process is effected successfully, the child will have sound moral habits.

Unfortunately, “virtue” is a largely forgotten word and concept today. We instead hear about “values,” which aren’t good by definition. (Little J.T. and Park-crier Kid have “values” — all the wrong ones.) And it would be just as with a civilization that forgot the elements of math. How could it possibly then create mathematically sound students? Likewise, a land that forgets the “elements” of morality (the virtues) cannot possibly raise morally sound children.

Tragically, this has serious consequences that go far beyond injured teachers. A major one is something Anglo-Irish philosopher Edmund Burke stressed. “It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free,” he wrote. “Their passions forge their fetters.”

This explains, too, why society is always just one generation away from losing its freedom. To wit:

It’s also always just one generation away from having young voters so immoral that they can’t sustain freedom.