When a kindergartener wrote a story for a class assignment, her teacher never imagined that the child’s work would lead to an arrest. However, that’s exactly what happened after the educator read the violent story the youngster submitted, prompting a call to authorities and eventually leading to the arrest of the child’s mother.
Kaydra Johnson, a 28-year-old mother-of-four from Tennessee, became the subject of a police investigation after a counselor at Donelson Elementary School in Arlington, Tennessee, about 30 miles east of Memphis, contacted authorities with concerns regarding a kindergarten student. That student was Johnson’s daughter, and the counselor reportedly became troubled by an assignment the girl submitted.
According to The Blaze, the unnamed kindergarten student wrote a violent story for a class assignment, featuring her mother and father as the main characters. In the story, the girl’s mother, Kaydra Johnson, was fighting with her father in their Arlington home when things took a violent and troubling turn that ended in gunfire.
“Mother and father got into a fight,” the little girl wrote. “Mom told him to get out because he was smoking too much. Father hit mother in the eye. Mother said look what you’ve done,” the story continued. Then, it took an even more troubling turn as the child revealed that her mother got a gun from under the bed, according to the child’s story.
“Mother got the gun from under the bed. I was in the living room, and my sisters and brother were in the room,” the kindergartener wrote, according to the NY Post. “Mother pulled the gun on father and shot three times. The bullets hit the wall. Mother told him to sleep in his car in the driveway and not to come back or she will shoot him again.”
After reading the violent words the kindergartener had written for the class assignment, the school counselor was left with no choice but to report the troubling incident. The state’s Department of Children’s Services was contacted by the counselor, and in turn, DCS notified the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office to report the child’s story, prompting deputies to investigate.
When deputies arrived at the girl’s home, they found Kaydra Johnson walking around outside the house, WREG reported. The mother told the deputies that she had been locked out of the house for about an hour and a half while two of her four children — a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old — remained inside.
Firefighters were called and managed to force open the garage door, allowing authorities entry into the residence. Once inside, investigators found Johnson’s two young children unattended but otherwise unharmed, but that’s not all they discovered. Investigators also reported seeing several bullet holes throughout the house, including in the walls of the living room, the hallway, and one of the bedrooms.
With the evidence stacked against her, Johnson allegedly admitted that she had fired several rounds at her husband while their children were in the home but claimed she had only done so in self-defense. According to the story that Kaydra Johnson told investigators, her husband had entered the house without her permission before punching her in the face with his fist and hitting her with a vacuum cleaner.
Seemingly supporting her allegations, police noted that the mother-of-four reportedly had visible marks, including a cut and bruises around her right eye. However, that didn’t change the fact that her children were put in harm’s way when she fired a gun repeatedly in the home. By her own admission, three of her children were sitting on the couch and a fourth child was in the bathroom during the fight and subsequent shooting. Thankfully, they were unharmed.
Johnson’s husband was also reportedly uninjured in the shooting, but Kaydra Johnson was still arrested at her home on Longleaf Oak Cove by Shelby County deputies. She was charged with four counts of reckless endangerment after investigators seized two firearms from the home. The four children, who were inside the house at the time of the shooting, were also removed. Two of the kids were placed in the care of their grandmother and the other two with their aunt.
There is a lesson to be learned here. If you are ever in a situation that requires you to fire a gun, report it to the police immediately. Had Kaydra Johnson done so, perhaps her claims of self-defense might have been able to be proven? However, when a violent husband goes away after being shot at, without being struck by a bullet, one can only assume he wasn’t truly a threat that required deadly force. At that point, authorities can only conclude the mother was reckless with gunfire around her four children, and they must act accordingly.
Sadly, that means four children had to be displaced from their home and a mother was locked up when things could have ended with an abusive man behind bars instead. If you or someone you know is the victim of domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) or visit www.thehotline.org or reach out to Local Domestic Violence Hotlines or Organizations, such as the YMCA, YWCA, Battered Women’s Shelter, Women Helping Women, Legal Aid Society, or local church resources. Victims can also contact a local police officer or attorney. Whatever the domestic violence victim decides, it’s critical to seek professional help right away.
