Jury Begins Deliberations In $40M Lawsuit Of VA Teacher Shot By 6-Year-Old Student

NEWPORT NEWS, VA — A jury began deliberations late Wednesday afternoon in the $40 million lawsuit filed by a former Virginia teacher who was shot by her 6-year-old student and later sued a school administrator, claiming she ignored multiple warnings that the boy had a gun and posed a threat.

“A gun changes everything,” Kevin Biniazan, an attorney for Abby Zwerner, told jurors on Wednesday, according to a CNN report. “You stop and you investigate. You get to the bottom of it. But that’s not what happened.”

Zwerner was a teacher at Richneck Elementary School in January 2023 when she was shot in the hand and chest by the boy.

“I thought I had died. I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven,” Zwerner testified last week. "But then it all got black. And so, I then thought I wasn’t going there. And then my next memory is I see two co-workers around me and I process that I’m hurt and they’re putting pressure on where I’m hurt.”

Zwerner, who is no longer a teacher, is suing the school's former assistant principal, Ebony Parker, for $40 million, alleging the administrator ignored multiple warnings that the boy had a gun and posed a threat.

Parker is the only defendant in the lawsuit. A judge previously dismissed the district’s superintendent and the school principal as defendants.

Parker faces a separate criminal trial next month on eight counts of felony child neglect. Each of the counts is punishable by up to five years in prison upon conviction.

The outcome of the lawsuit could set a precedent for who shoulders the blame in school shootings. As of last week, there were 64 US school shootings this year, 27 of them on K-12 school grounds.

In the lawsuit against Parker, Zwerner claimed Parker chose to "breach her assumed duty" to protect Zwerner, despite multiple reports that a firearm was on school property and likely in possession of a violent individual."

Zwerner also alleges that school officials knew the boy "had a history of random violence" at school and home, including that he "strangled and choked" his kindergarten teacher and "chased students around the playground with a belt in an effort to whip them with it."

The boy was transferred out of the school and placed in a different school in the district, but was allowed to return the following year, according to the complaint.

“Parker did not have a legal duty to protect Miss Zwerner,” Sandra Douglas, one of Parker’s attorneys, said in her closing argument, according to CNN. “She did not volunteer to protect Miss Zwerner.”

The judge told jurors on Wednesday they’d be deciding whether Parker was grossly negligent and whether her negligence caused Zwerner’s injury and damages, CNN reported. Jurors also must decide whether Zwerner was negligent and caused any of her own damages. If so, she would be prohibited from recovering any money from Parker.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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