Abby Zwerner files lawsuit against school after shot by student

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On January 6, 2023, Richneck Elementary School was shot by one of her 6-year-old students inside the classroom. The unidentified student is said to have known violent behavioral problems by his parents and the school administration. According to a CNN report, on the morning of the incident, several school staffers and teachers attempted to warn Assistant Principal Ebony Parker about the boy potentially possessing a firearm on school grounds. She ignored those concerns and hours later, Abby Zwerner had a gunshot wound in her hand and chest.

Assistant Principal Ebony Parker, a defendant in the lawsuit, ignored “at least three separate warnings from teachers and staff that students had seen the firearm” and that the student had “removed an object that was likely a firearm from his backpack before it was searched,” the complaint filed in Virginia Circuit Court for the City of Newport News states.

Zwerner has now filed a $40 million lawsuit against the school, specifically against Principal Briana Foster-Newton, former Superintendant Dr. George Parker, and Parker, for Parker’s dismissal of the educators’ concerns that resulted in her injury. According to the lawsuit, Parker not only ignored their pleas, she refused to allow anyone to search the child for the suspected firearm. Without providing Parker cover, she very well may have thought that she could have been sued for an illegal search, however, it stands to reason that a lawsuit for violating a child’s rights is a whole helluva lot better than a shot teacher. Just sayin’.

The child in question was supposed to be accompanied by a parent for half the school day because he was that violently disruptive according to the report. As a kindergartener in 2021-2022, he was disciplined for strangling a teacher and inappropriately touching a female classmate on the playground.

There will be no criminal charges filed says the Virginia Commonwealth Attorney General’s office. Sounds like this kid needs a special school for his special needs.