NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A former assistant principal at an elementary school in Virginia is due in court for trial, accused of ignoring warnings that a 6-year-old student brought a loaded gun to school that was later used to shoot his first-grade teacher.
Ebony Parker’s criminal trial is set to start Monday in Newport News.
Parker is charged with eight counts of felony child neglect, one for each of the eight bullets in the gun that was brought into the classroom of Richneck Elementary schoolteacher Abby Zwerner in January 2023, prosecutors have said. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison upon conviction.
The charges allege Parker “did commit a willful act or omission in the care of such students, in a manner so gross, wanton and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life,” according to court documents.
Criminal charges against school officials following 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.
Last November a jury awarded $10 million to Zwerner, siding with her claims in a lawsuit that Parker, an ex-assistant principal, ignored repeated warnings that the child had a gun.
Zwerner was shot as she sat at a reading table in her classroom. She 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.
Parker was the only defendant in the lawsuit. A judge previously dismissed the district’s superintendent and the school principal as defendants.
The lawsuit said Parker had a duty to protect Zwerner and others from harm after being told about the gun. 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.
Zwerner testified she first heard about the gun prior to class recess from a reading specialist who had been tipped off by students. The shooting occurred a few hours later. Despite her injuries, Zwerner was able to hustle her students out of the classroom. She eventually passed out in the school office.
Zwerner is scheduled to testify in the criminal case, according to court records.
The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. Her son told authorities he climbed to the top of a dresser to retrieve the gun from his mother’s purse.
