First-grade teacher Abigail Zwerner’s student pulled a gun from his pocket and shot her about an hour after he showed the weapon to another child at recess, according to a new lawsuit.
School officials are accused of ignoring multiple warnings about the 6-year-old boy that day, including how Zwerner had reported the student was in a “violent mood” at Richneck Elementary School in Virginia on Jan. 6, a complaint says.
Zwerner, 25, ultimately survived the shooting that left her with bits of the bullet stuck in her chest and in need of hand surgeries, according to an April 3 news release on the lawsuit from Breit Biniazan law firm.
“Seeing an open wound on your body and remembering how you got it is pretty traumatizing. … I think it’s been helpful now that they’ve scarred over, but it’s still a reminder that ‘hey this happened to you. This is what your body’s been through,’” Zwerner told Savannah Guthrie in an interview on NBC’s ”Today” show on March 21.
She believes the bullet fragments will always remain in her chest, she said during the interview.
Now, she’s filed a $40 million lawsuit against the Newport News school board and former school superintendent George Parker III, former Richneck principal Briana Foster Newton and former Richneck assistant principal Ebony Parker in Newport News Circuit Court.
Attorneys Kevin Biniazan and Jeffrey Breit of the Breit Biniazan law firm are representing Zwerner, alongside attorney Diane P. Toscano of the Toscano Law Group.
McClatchy News contacted a Newport News School Board official for comment on the lawsuit on April 3 and didn’t immediately receive a response.
“Essentially, this child was a ticking time bomb on school property and the administration chose to ignore the problem,” Breit said in a statement.
Following the shooting, the Newport News school board chose to fire superintendent George Parker III, according to the Associated Press. Ebony Parker resigned from her position as assistant principal and Newton is no longer the principal but still works for the school district, the outlet reported.
McClatchy News contacted Newton’s attorney for comment on April 3 and didn’t immediately receive a response. Attorney contact information for George Parker III and Ebony Parker wasn’t immediately available.
No charges have been brought regarding the shooting, according to the Associated Press.
The boy’s ‘history of random violence’ leading up to the shooting
Two days before Zwerner’s student shot her, the boy grabbed her phone and smashed it on the floor and shattered it, according to a complaint. He was suspended for a day and returned the day of the shooting, the complaint says.
At school, he “had a history of random violence, with which all defendants were familiar,” the complaint says.
His history includes how he had previously attacked students and strangled a teacher while in kindergarten, according to the complaint. He was removed from Richneck for the remainder of that year and sent to another school over his “violent behavior,” the complaint says.
He returned to Richneck for first grade in the fall of 2022, according to the complaint.
On the day of the shooting, his mom dropped him off and left, the complaint says. Prior to this, the school required a parent to accompany him each day for the first half of the school year due to his violent tendencies, the complaint says.
Around lunchtime around 11:30, Zwerner warned assistant principal Ebony Parker the boy “was in a ‘violent mood’ that day, had threatened to beat up a kindergartner during lunchtime, and angrily stared down a security officer” in the cafeteria, the complaint says.
Ebony Parker is accused of ignoring these concerns, according to the complaint.
Soon afterward, two students told a school reading specialist that the boy had a gun in his backpack — which the student denied when he was questioned by the specialist, according to the complaint.
During recess, Zwerner told the school reading specialist she saw her student take something out of his backpack before recess and put it in the pocket of his hoodie, the complaint says.
The reading specialist searched the boy’s backpack in the classroom and didn’t find anything before telling Ebony Parker about the concerns, according to the complaint.
Ebony Parker is accused of telling the specialist that the boy’s “pockets were too small to hold a handgun and did nothing,” the complaint says.
When recess ended at 1 p.m., another student was crying and told another first-grade teacher that Zwerner’s student had showed him a gun in his pocket during recess and threatened him not to tell anyone, according to the complaint.
Afterward, Ebony Parker was told about this latest information but, according to the complaint, “took no further action.”
A guidance counselor then asked if he could search the boy for the gun, but Parker is accused of forbidding staff from doing so, according to the complaint. Virginia law would require a principal to immediately contact police about the reports of a weapon on campus, but she did not do so, the complaint says.
Shortly afterward around 1:59 p.m., Zwerner was sitting at her reading desk in class when the child pulled out the gun and shot her, according to the complaint.
The assault “was not directed at her because she was an employee of Richneck Elementary School…but was instead personal to her,” the complaint says.
Zwerner is suing the defendants on several counts, including negligence, and demands a trial by jury.
“Abigail Zwerner deserved more from the school system and now she will live with the results of their neglect for the rest of her life,” Breit, her attorney, said.
Zwerner told Guthrie during the “Today” show interview that she’s simply trying to stay positive as she recovers from the shooting.
“I’ve gone through a lot of obstacles and challenges,” she said. “Some days are not so good days where I can’t get up out of bed. Some days are better than others where I’m able to get out of bed and make it to my appointments.”