Virginia Jury Awards $10 Million in Damages to First Grade Teacher Shot by Student
A Virginia jury awarded $10 million in damages on Thursday to former elementary school teacher Abby Zwerner, who was shot by a student in her classroom in January 2023.
Zwerner’s legal team successfully argued in a civil trial that Ebony Parker, the school’s assistant principal at the time, was grossly negligent in her response to multiple reports that the student with a pattern of bad behavior might have a firearm in his possession on campus.
“This verdict is a major step forward in Abby’s long road of healing,” her attorneys Diane Toscano, Kevin Biniazan, and Jeffrey Breit said in a statement to Security Management. “It confirms what we’ve said from the beginning—what happened inside Richneck Elementary was wrong and will never be tolerated.”
On 6 January 2023, one of Zwerner’s first-grade students brought a gun to Richneck Elementary—part of the Newport News Public School District—and shot her in the hand and chest while she was reading a story to the class. The incident occurred after four different staff members had warned Parker that they believed the student had a gun.
Zwerner underwent several surgeries as a result of the shooting and has since left teaching. She initially filed a civil lawsuit in April 2023 seeking $40 million in damages from Parker, the district’s superintendent, and the school principal; a judge dismissed the other two administrators from the case but allowed Zwerner’s challenge against Parker to move forward.
In the lawsuit and during the trial, Zwerner’s legal team said that Parker—who resigned after the incident—had a duty to protect Zwerner and others on campus from harm after being informed of suspicions about the gun.
Two Richneck elementary staff members testified during the trial that on separate occasions on 6 January 2023, they told Parker that students had alerted them that a student in Zwerner’s class had a gun.
“Who would think a six-year-old would bring a gun to school and shoot their teacher?” the Associated Press reports Toscano said during the trial. “It’s Dr. Parker’s job to believe that is possible. It’s her job to investigate it and get to the very bottom of it.”
Parker’s attorney, Daniel Hogan, did not return Security Management’s request for comment. During the trial, however, he argued that the shooting was not foreseeable and that it was unfair to “judge another person’s decision based on stuff that came up after the fact,” according to the AP.
That argument does not appear to have resonated with the jury, which ruled in favor of Zwerner and awarded her substantial damages this week.
“When the City of Newport News and its schools failed to protect their teachers, students, and citizens, we held them accountable through the courts. Now it’s time for the City to ensure Abby receives the justice this verdict represents,” Zwerner’s attorneys said.
Robert C. White, executive director, public information and community involvement, Newport News Public Schools, declined to comment on the civil trial or security measures in place at the district to prevent gun violence on campus.
In previous reporting, though, Security Management found that the school district conducted a review of the incident, assessed its safety procedures, and added additional preventative measures—including weapons detection systems and additional security staff.
“There are many concerns that we will need to unpack before we will be able to determine if any additional preventative measures would have impacted the probability of this incident occurring,” said Superintendent George Parker in a press release on 7 January 2023.
Prosecutors declined to file criminal charges against the student who shot Zwerner, instead choosing to hold his mother accountable. She pled guilty to felony child neglect in December 2023 and was sentenced to two years in prison, in part for allowing her son to have access to her firearm which was used to shoot Zwerner.
Local prosecutors have also charged Parker with eight felony counts of child abuse and neglect—one for each bullet in the firearm that the student brought to Richneck Elementary. Her criminal trial is scheduled to begin on 17 November.
For more resources on campus safety, revisit our series School Security and Early Intervention, K-12 Physical Security, Liability for Active Shooter Incidents, and the ASIS International School Security Standard.
