Former teacher shot by student, 6, wins $10M jury verdict against ex-assistant principal

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A jury in Virginia on Thursday awarded $10 million to a former teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student and later sued an ex-administrator accused of ignoring repeated warnings that the child had a gun.

The jury returned its decision against Ebony Parker, a former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News.

Abby Zwerner was shot in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom. She sought $40 million against Parker in the lawsuit.

Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries and does not have the full use of her left hand. A bullet narrowly missed her heart and remains in her chest.

Parker was the only defendant in the lawsuit. A judge previously dismissed the district’s superintendent and the school principal as defendants.

The shooting sent shock waves through this military shipbuilding community and the country at large, with many wondering how a child so young could gain access to a gun and shoot his teacher.

The lawsuit said Parker had a duty to protect Zwerner and others from harm after being told about the gun. Zwerner’s attorneys said Parker failed to act in the hours before the shooting after school staff members told her the student had a gun in his backpack.

“Who would think a 6-year-old would bring a gun to school and shoot their teacher?” Zwerner’s attorney, Diane Toscano, told the jury. “It’s Dr. Parker’s job to believe that that is possible. It’s her job to investigate it and get to the very bottom of it.”

Parker did not testify. Her attorney, Daniel Hogan, warned jurors about hindsight bias and “Monday morning quarterbacking” in the shooting.

““You will be able to judge for yourself whether or not this was foreseeable,” Hogan said. “That’s the heart of this case.

“The law knows that it is fundamentally unfair to judge another person’s decisions based on stuff that came up after the fact. The law requires you to examine people’s decisions at the time they make them.”

The shooting occurred on the day the student returned from a suspension for slamming Zwerner’s phone two days earlier.

Zwerner testified she first heard about the gun prior to class recess from a reading specialist who had been tipped off by students. The shooting occurred hours later. Despite her injuries, Zwerner was able to hustle her students out of the classroom. She eventually passed out in the school office.

Zwerner testified she believed she had died that day.

“I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven,” Zwerner said. “But then it all got black. And so, I then thought I wasn’t going there. And then my next memory is I see two co-workers around me and I process that I’m hurt and they’re putting pressure on where I’m hurt.”

Zwerner no longer works for the school district and said she has no plans to teach again. She has since become a licensed cosmetologist.

Parker faces a separate criminal trial this month on eight counts of felony child neglect. Each count is punishable by up to five years in prison in the event of a conviction.

The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. Her son told authorities he got her handgun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mom’s purse.

Raby and Verduzco write for the Associated Press. Raby reported from Cross Lanes, W.Va.