A $40 million civil trial involving a former Newport News teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student got under way this week.
Abigail “Abby” Zwerner is suing then-assistant principal Ebony Parker for allegedly ignoring multiple reports that the child had a gun in his backpack.
Zwerner was a first-grade English teacher at Richneck Elementary School when a troubled student brought a 9 mm gun to school on Jan. 6, 2023.
The child later shot Zwerner in her classroom; the bullet when through her hand and lodged in her chest, where it remains today. While she survived the attack, she has undergone six surgeries to date and may never have full use of her hand again.
Parker’s attorney, Daniel Hogan, asked jurors to consider the facts of the day, arguing that looking back now after the fact is “Monday morning quarterbacking,” according to trial updates from Court TV.
Zwerner’s attorney, Diane Toscano, argued that Parker made bad decisions and choices on the fateful day of the shooting. Experts in the trial testified that the former teacher could have died due to the proximity of the bullet to her heart, and she has a long road ahead of her in terms of healing.
Dr. Daniel Munn, the chief of surgery at Riverside Regional Medical Center, testified that Zwerner is lucky to be alive. The bullet went through Zwerner’s ribs and was just centimeters away from a major artery to her heart. Dr. Ann Shufflebarger also took the stand and asserted that Parker failed to take appropriate action in her role as assistant principal.
Zwerner, a James Madison University alum, initially named other parties in the lawsuit including the Newport News School Board, former superintendent Dr. Gregory Parker and former Richneck Principal Briana Foster-Newton, but a judge dismissed the other parties from the lawsuit.
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University of Virginia Professor Dewey G. Cornell, Ph.D., told AFP for a previous story that while elementary school students commonly make threats to kill someone, nearly all of those threats are not serious.
“We are concerned that some schools are not conducting threat assessments,” Cornell said. “The shooting at an elementary school in Newport News … seems to represent a failure to use threat assessment that could have averted a shooting.”
All public schools in Virginia are mandated by law to have behavioral threat assessment teams in place to evaluate the seriousness of threats.
The civil trial is being streamed on the Court TV website.
Other criminal charges
The child’s mother, Deja Nicole Taylor, will serve nearly four years behind bars, for felony child neglect and a federal charge of using marijuana while owning a gun. The child allegedly removed the semi-automatic gun from her purse.
Parker is also facing eight counts of felony child abuse in the incident, one count for each of the eight bullets, according to prosecutors. Each count is punishable by up to five years in prison. A jury trial is scheduled to begin on Nov. 17 at 9 a.m. in Newport News Circuit Court, according to online court records.
Related stories
For additional stories related to school violence, click here.
- Toolkit released to guide schools in training, implementation and evaluation of threats
- UVA school safety expert: Threats more common in elementary schools than you’d think
- Threats among elementary school children require intervention ‘to break the cycle’ of behavior
- Tim Kaine, feeling ‘helpless’ in response to gun violence: ‘There’s no safe space left’
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Crystal Graham
