An assistant principal at a Virginia elementary school shook off repeated warnings that a 6-year-old student had a gun that was later used to shoot his teacher, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Opening statements were given in the trial of Ebony Parker, who is charged with eight counts of felony child neglect in the January 2023 shooting at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia. The shooting wounded first grade teacher Abby Zwerner in her classroom.
Prior to the shooting, several school employees told Parker they believed the child had a gun in his backpack, only to be told by Parker that the child’s mother would be arriving soon to pick him up for the day, special prosecutor Josh Jenkins said.
“Does she say ‘search the child’? No,” Jenkins told the jury. “Does she say ‘call the police,’ or does she call the police? No. Does she remove the child from the classroom and separate him? No.
“She didn’t even get up from her desk. She didn’t leave her office. Warning after warning after warning, she did nothing.”
But Parker’s attorney, Curtis Rogers, said teachers should have done something if they believed a gun was present, saying they should have at least separated the child from about 19 other students in the classroom.
“That did not occur,” Rogers said. “Each one of those individuals had the authority to move those classmates.”
Rogers said the prosecution must prove Parker’s actions showed a reckless disregard for human life. Instead, Rogers placed the blame on Zwerner and others who had witnessed the child’s movements long before the shooting.
“What about these other people who had direct contact with this child?” Rogers said.
School policy at the time required crisis situations to be reported to an administrator who is required to take action, Jenkins said. A school counselor even asked for permission to search the child but Parker denied the request because searches could only be conducted by an administrator or a security officer. The school’s security officer was away at another school at the time.
That left Parker and the school’s principal with the authority to act, but the principal knew nothing about the threat because Parker did not tell her about it, Jenkins said.
“There was only one person in the school that day that had both the authority to act and the knowledge of the ongoing crisis, and that person, you will see, was Dr. Parker,” Jenkins said.
Zwerner was the first witness called to testify in the trial. She said the student had slammed her phone to the ground a few days earlier and was in a “violent” mood the day of the shooting.
During recess on the school playground, the student wore an oversized jacket with both of his hands in his pockets the entire time. Zwerner said she sent a text message with that observation to a reading specialist who had been tipped off earlier by students about the gun and reported it to Parker.
After recess, the student continued to wear the jacket in the classroom, where Zwerner was shot at a reading table. 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.
The eight counts Parker faces include one for each of the bullets in the gun brought into the classroom, prosecutors have said. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison upon conviction.
Criminal charges against school officials after a school shooting are quite rare, experts say. 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.
A jury awarded $10 million to Zwerner in a civil trial last November in which Parker, who no longer works at the school, was the only defendant.
The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges.
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