An assistant principal at a Virginia elementary school allegedly ignored multiple alerts about a 6-year-old student possessing a firearm, which was eventually used in a classroom shooting, a prosecutor revealed on Tuesday.
In the trial of Ebony Parker, who faces eight felony child neglect charges, opening statements highlighted the January 2023 incident at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, where teacher Abby Zwerner was injured when a gun went off in her first-grade classroom.
Before the shooting took place, several staff members reported their suspicions to Parker that the young student had a gun in his backpack. However, Parker reportedly responded by saying the child’s mother would soon arrive to take him home, as stated by special prosecutor Josh Jenkins.
Jenkins addressed the jury, questioning Parker’s inaction, saying, “Did she order a search of the child? No. Did she involve the police or contact them herself? No. Did she isolate the child from the class? No.”
“She remained at her desk, never leaving her office. Despite receiving numerous warnings, she took no action whatsoever,” Jenkins added.
Conversely, Parker’s defense attorney, Curtis Rogers, argued that the teachers should have taken initiative if they suspected a gun was on campus, suggesting they should have at least separated the child from the other 19 students present 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.
