NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The mother of the 6-year-old student who shot his teacher at Richneck Elementary School on Jan. 6 is being taken to task in the criminal justice system for her son’s actions.
Deja Nicole Taylor, 25, faces a maximum of 31 years in prison if convicted of charges pending against her in state and federal courts.
But some have asked: What about the boy’s father? Where is he in all of this?
The answer is that while Malik Ramon Ellison, 26, has had a relationship with his son over the years, he wasn’t living with him at the time of the shooting and didn’t take him to school that day.
Yet Ellison is no stranger to the criminal justice system.
In recent years, he faced domestic assault charges from two women — including Taylor. He’s got convictions for assault and battery, violating a protective order and having ammunition as a convicted felon, among others. And he was accused of lying about a past felony conviction when he tried to buy a gun.
One of the assault charges — stemming from a September 2020 argument with Taylor — remains unresolved after Ellison failed to show up for court hearings in January and May. He’s now listed as a fugitive, with an active warrant for his arrest.
And in another case — in which a woman accused Ellison of holding a gun to the back of her head and threatening to kill her — he pleaded guilty to two charges last August and landed a one-year prison term. (He was released a few months later on time already served).
In the school shooting case that has garnered national headlines, police say the 6-year-old boy took Taylor’s handgun to school in his backpack.
As the boy sat at his desk at about 2 p.m., he pulled the firearm out of his front hoodie pocket. Then he pointed it at his first grade teacher — 25-year-old Abigail Zwerner, who was seated at a nearby reading table — and opened fire. The bullet went through the teacher’s left hand, then struck her in the upper chest and shoulder, where it remains today.
Deja Taylor is accused in state court of felony child neglect and a misdemeanor count of access to firearms by children.
Separately, federal prosecutors are charging her with having a gun along with marijuana — a drug that remains illegal under federal law. She’s also accused of lying on a gun background check form saying she didn’t use weed when in fact she was a heavy user.
Ellison, meanwhile, has had a criminal record dating to his preteen years.
He was convicted in 2009 of two sexual assault charges in Hampton stemming from a year earlier, when he was 11. When he was 17, Ellison was one of two teens convicted in a felony breaking and entering case in Hampton.
In September 2020, a then-24 Ellison was charged with breaking and entering into Deja Taylor’s Newport News home and assaulting her. The boy was 4 years old at the time and living in the home.
“Taylor stated when she asked Ellison to leave, he pushed her front door open, came inside and struck her in the jaw,” according to a criminal complaint from police. “Taylor stated Ellison threw her onto the ground, and when she got up, she ran into her apartment, locked the door, and called police.”
Taylor told police that Ellison “followed her” to a McDonald’s in Oyster Point the day before. Taylor also took out a protective order against Ellison on behalf of herself and her son.
At a hearing in January 2021, prosecutors dropped the breaking and entering charge. But Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Rebecca Robinson found the “evidence sufficient” to find Ellison guilty of assaulting Taylor.
Robinson withheld the sentence and final judgment for two years — to January 2023 — to allow Ellison time to demonstrate good behavior.
A few months later — after Ellison was charged with violating a protective order by being with Taylor during a Williamsburg traffic stop — Taylor asked that the protective order be lifted. “He will be living with us as I work full time and cannot afford childcare and would like to coparent on a mutual level,” she wrote in that request.
The judge declined to revoke the protective order. And when it came time to finally resolve the 2020 assault case at a hearing in January, Ellison failed to show up several times.
A warrant was issued for his arrest. Police took him into custody May 9, and he was ordered to come back for a hearing seven days later. But Ellison again failed to show on May 16. A judge issued an order to arrest him, with an active warrant now on file for his arrest.
Another woman came forward in August 2021 to say Ellison had assaulted her. The woman said she and Ellison were arguing about “possible infidelity,” with the woman accusing him of being still involved with Taylor.
The woman said Ellison knocked her glasses off. When she tried to close the door, she said, Ellison kicked and pushed his way through. She said Ellison pushed her into a bed and grabbed her neck. “Stop causing problems, I will kill you!” she said he told her.
The woman sought protective orders against Ellison and Taylor, who she contended also showed up at her home and yelled, “I’ll be back.” But though a magistrate issued a three-day protective order against Ellison, none was issued against Taylor.
The same woman went to police a second time a month later.
In September 2021, the woman said she asked Ellison to leave her home because she learned he was sleeping with his “baby mama.” The woman asserted that Ellison pointed a gun to the back of the woman’s head and threatened to kill her, and that she feared for her life.
Police were on the lookout for a red Chrysler, pulling it over in Oyster Point. Taylor was at the wheel, Ellison in the passenger seat, court records say. Officers said they found a small black and blue Taurus handgun in the car, a criminal complaint said.
Ellison was charged in those cases with abduction — accused of not allowing the woman to leave her apartment — as well as brandishing a firearm, assault and battery, using a firearm in a felony, and two counts of possession of a firearm as a convicted felon. He was also charged with violating the prior protective order pertaining to Taylor.
Four of those charges advanced to the trial stage. In August 2022, Ellison pleaded guilty to two charges — assault and battery and having ammunition as a convicted felon.
He was sentenced under a plea agreement deal to a year of active time, with another five years suspended. With time already served and credit for good behavior, he was out of custody by last fall.
Court documents also show that Ellison was charged in January 2022 with lying on a gun purchasing form when he tried to buy a firearm at a Warwick Boulevard gun shop in March 2020. The Virginia State Police said Ellison checked a box saying he had never been convicted of a felony, despite the Hampton breaking and entering conviction.
Court records show that Newport News prosecutors dropped the false statement charge in May 2022, though no reason is provided and Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard did not return a phone call on the issue Friday.
When Taylor pleaded guilty last week to the federal charges against her, a statement of facts also delves heavily into an April 2021 traffic stop in which a car Taylor was driving was pulled over for speeding in Williamsburg. Taylor was in the car with Ellison, their 4-year-old son, and another man.
One man’s backpack contained “suspected crack cocaine,” weed and other drugs, the statement of facts said, adding that there were “several marijuana edibles that looked like rice treats” next to the boy. Court documents say Ellison was found guilty of violating a protective order by being with Taylor, getting one day in jail.
A phone number listed for Ellison was not in service this week.
His lawyer with the Newport News Public Defender’s Office declined to speak about the case. “I must respectfully decline to comment on that issue,” Assistant Public Defender Katherine Boyle wrote in an email.
According to court documents, Ellison is a high school graduate who attended the Culinary Institute of Virginia and has ties in the community through his mother.
One of Taylor’s lawyers, James Ellenson, declined to comment on Ellison’s cases.
But the 6-year-old’s great-grandfather — who landed custody of the boy in late April — said he would put strict limits on the boy’s exposure to his parents.
“I can tell you that I have full custody of my great grandson, and (Ellison’s) role is very limited, just like my granddaughter’s role is very limited,” said Calvin Taylor, 62. “They’re gonna always be his parents, but until they can get their lives together, that’s how we’re gonna be.”
Calvin Taylor said he knows Ellison’s family well. “He wasn’t raised that way,” he said of his issues with the law. “He has some very loving parents” who are “shocked at his behavior.”
“You can sit down with that young man, and he will make you think that he is the most intelligent, polite, engaging individual you’ve ever met,” Taylor said. But “if you put him in a different environment,” he acts differently too.
He also believes Ellison was treated too lightly by prosecutors. “How can you assault a woman, leave the scene, get stopped in the car that the woman said you were in, and you have a gun? But yet, when you go to court, it gets dropped down to having ammunition? I just don’t understand that.”
