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.
Over the first three days of testimony, the seven-person jury heard from 16 witnesses called by Zwerner’s legal team — who described how the events unfolded that day and the toll the incident has taken on the ex-teacher, who 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.
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.
What 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.
Parker — who is facing criminal child neglect charges related to the shooting — didn’t testify in her own defense.
The jury began deliberating around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The boy was not criminally or civilly charged. 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.
