Jury deliberates in $40M lawsuit filed against administrator by teacher who was shot by 6-year-old

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A jury in Virginia began deliberating Wednesday in a $40 million lawsuit filed against a former school administrator accused of ignoring repeated warnings that a 6-year-old had a gun hours before a teacher was shot.

Closing arguments were held earlier Wednesday following a weeklong trial in the lawsuit filed by former teacher Abby Zwerner against Ebony Parker, a former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News.

Zwerner was shot in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom. 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.

Zwerner’s attorneys said Parker failed to act in the hours before the shooting after several school staff members told her that the student had a gun in his backpack.

The case went to the jury after a judge rejected a defense motion for a mistrial. Parker was the only defendant in the lawsuit filed by Zwerner. The judge previously dismissed the district’s superintendent and the school principal as defendants.

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