A Virginia jury has found a former elementary school administrator liable for $10 million in the shooting of a first-grade teacher by a 6-year-old student nearly three years ago.
Former first-grade educator Abigail Zwerner sued Ebony Parker, the former vice principal of Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Va., for gross negligence, alleging Parker failed to act on multiple warnings that the 6-year-old boy had a gun and was acting alarmingly the day of the January 2023 shooting.
After over five hours of deliberation on Wednesday and Thursday, the seven-person jury ruled in favor of Zwerner — who had been seeking $40 million in damages.
A jury reached a verdict in the $40 million lawsuit brought by first-grade teacher Abigail Zwerner (pictured) over getting shot by a 6-year-old student. COURT TVParker sat stoically, her face unchanging as the verdict was read out.
While Zwerner pursed her lips, her eyes wide, as if to hold back tears.
Zwerner’s legal team lauded the verdict in a statement released right after, saying it would help Zwerner during her recovery from the harrowing incident.
“This verdict is a major step forward in Abby’s long road of healing,” lawyers Diane Toscano, Kevin Biniazan and Jeffrey Breit said in a joint statement. “It confirms what we’ve said from the beginning — what happened inside Richneck Elementary was wrong and will never be tolerated.”
Zwerner sued former Richneck Elementary School vice principal Ebony Parker (pictured) for gross negligence, alleging she failed to act on warnings that the child might have had a gun that day. Court TV“When the City of Newport News and its schools failed to protect their teachers, students, and citizens, we held them accountable through the courts,” the statement continued. “Now it’s time for the City to ensure Abby receives the justice this verdict represents.”
Over the first three days of testimony last week, the jury heard from 16 witnesses called by the Zwerner’s legal team — who described how the events unfolded that day and the toll the incident has taken on the ex-teacher — who still carries a bullet fragment inside her body to this day.
Zwerner — who was 25 at the time and had only been teaching for 2½ years — also took the witness stand, telling the jury she thought she’d died and was going “to heaven” when the child, standing by his desk, took out the 9mm handgun and opened fire, shooting her through the hand and in the chest.
“A gun changes everything,” Biniazan, told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday morning. “It changed one young woman’s life forever.”
Biniazan argued that the buck stopped with Parker and that it was her “job to investigate” reports from students that the boy had brought a gun to school that day.
Biniazan also noted that three other staffers had brought concerns to Parker over the possibility of a student having a gun and Parker, therefore, had three opportunities to search the boy for a weapon — yet chose not to.
Parker’s lawyer, Sandra Douglas, in her own closing statements later Wednesday, argued that no one could have predicted what would unfold that day — that a child so young would have access to a gun, bring it to school and shoot a teacher.
The student was “dropped off by his mom with a loaded firearm in his backpack,” Douglas said.
Zwerner still has a fragment of a bullet in her body that she has to live with and she underwent six surgeries for gunshot wounds to her hand and chest. APWhat happened next was “unforeseeable. It was unthinkable and it was unprecedented,” Douglas said.
The defense lawyer argued that there was a series of failures by staffers all the way up to the top and yet Parker is being made the sole scapegoat for the shooting.
“Somebody’s got to go down,” Douglas said. “We are going to blame Ebony Parker.”
Parker’s side called two witnesses on the fourth and final day of testimony on Monday: one medical witness to discount a psychiatrist’s assessment that Zwerner has been living with post-traumatic stress disorder since the shooting, and one school safety expert who testified that Parker’s response was in line with standards.
Zwerner told the jury she thought she’d died and was going “to heaven” when the child shot her through the hand and in the chest. APParker — who is facing criminal child neglect charges related to the shooting — didn’t testify in her own defense.
His mother, Deja Taylor, was sentenced in 2023 to two years in prison for child neglect after her son took the 9mm handgun out of her purse.
Parker is slated to go on trial in the criminal case next month.
She has pleaded not guilty.
Parker’s lawyers didn’t immediately return a request for comment Thursday afternoon.
