Teacher shot by 6-year-old student awarded millions of dollars in civil lawsuit

A Virginia teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student in Jan. 2023 successfully sued a former school administrator she accused of ignoring warning signs.

Abigail Zwerner was shot once in the hand and the chest in her first-grade classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. She was hospitalized for two weeks, and the boy’s mother was later convicted on gun charges.

‘A gun changes everything. You stop and you investigate. … You get to the bottom of it to know whether that gun is real and on campus so you can deal with it. But that’s not what happened.’

Zwerner’s civil lawsuit accused former assistant principal Ebony Parker of ignoring several warnings, including one from Zwerner herself. The teacher told Parker that the student had been in a “violent mood” and threatened to beat another child.

Another teacher reportedly told Parker that students had reported the boy as having a gun in his backpack.

On Thursday, the jury awarded Zwerner $10 million in damages.

Parker did not reportedly react when the verdict was read.

“I remember just three years ago, almost to this day, hearing for the first time Abby’s story and thinking that this could have been prevented,” one of Zwerner’s attorneys said outside the courthouse. “So now to hear from a jury of her peers that they agree that this tragedy could have been prevented.”

Zwerner’s attorney, Kevin Biniazan, argued in court that the report of a gun should have stopped everything at the school.

“A gun changes everything. You stop and you investigate,” Biniazan said. “You get to the bottom of it to know whether that gun is real and on campus so you can deal with it. But that’s not what happened.”

He added, “What number do you arrive at for somebody who didn’t want this and it’s been inserted into her life like a bullet fragment against her spine?”

The family of the student released a statement saying he was suffering from an “acute disability.” The child was never charged, on account of his young age. His grandfather said in an interview that he thought the attention on the case was racially motivated.

RELATED: Grandfather of 6-year-old boy who shot teacher says news coverage is racially motivated

Zwerner testified at the trial about her recollections from the shooting.

“I thought I had died,” she said. “I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven. But then it all got black, and so I then thought I wasn’t going there.”

The mother of the student, Deja Taylor, was sentenced to 21 months in prison for federal firearm and drugs charges, as well as two years for child neglect. Parker has also been criminally charged with eight counts of felony child abuse with disregard for life — one count for every bullet in the gun.

Interest on the award starts as of June 1, 2024.

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