A former assistant principal at Virginia’s Richneck Elementary School has been indicted in the high-profile shooting of a teacher by a 6-year-old student, the first case experts said they were aware of in which an administrator had been charged in connection with the handling of a school shooting.
A special grand jury in Newport News charged Ebony Parker with eight counts of child abuse on March 11, a little over a year after the shooting generated national attention because of the shooter’s age, according to court records that were made public Tuesday.
Newport News prosecutors declined to provide details about the charges but said the special grand jury empaneled to investigate any security lapses that led to the shooting will issue a report on its findings on Wednesday. The panel started taking testimony in September.
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Abigail Zwerner, the teacher who was shot and seriously wounded, alleges in a $40 million lawsuit that Parker was warned at least three times on the day of the shooting in January 2023 that the boy had a gun, but failed to do anything. Zwerner claims the shooting could have been avoided.
“These charges are very serious and underscore the failure of the school district to act to prevent the tragic shooting of Abby Zwerner,” her attorneys said in a statement. “The school board continues to deny their responsibility to Abby, and this indictment is just another brick in the wall of mounting failures and gross negligence in their case.”
Parker’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment but has denied the allegations in a response to the lawsuit. Parker resigned from Richneck after the shooting.
Several experts said the case could be the first of its kind.
Ron Avi Astor, a professor of social welfare at UCLA who studies school shootings, said the Richneck prosecution might represent a sea change, spurred by the relentless pace of gun violence on campuses in recent years.
“Maybe 10 or 15 years ago people could say, ‘I wasn’t educated. I didn’t know this could happen. I thought the kid was too young to have a gun,’” Astor said. “But in this day and age with all the data, reporting and training it’s really problematic for a vice principal not to follow up on these warnings.”
Prosecutors have shown a growing willingness to pursue criminal prosecutions for lapses that have led to gunfire at schools, and experts said they think more such cases are likely to come.
The parents of a Michigan teen who shot and killed four students at Oxford High School in 2021 were sentenced to 10-15 years each on Tuesday for convictions of involuntary manslaughter for failing to get their son help and keep him from accessing firearms.
Prosecutors have said they were also considering charges against Oxford school officials for their alleged failure to do more to prevent the shooting, but to date none have been filed.
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In the Richneck case, the mother of the 6-year-old who carried out the shooting previously pleaded guilty to gun charges in federal court and child neglect in state court in connection with the shooting. Deja Taylor is currently serving one of her prison sentences.
Experts said the nearest parallel to the case against the Richneck administrator was the prosecution of a school resource officer who was acquitted at trial of inaction during the 2018 Parkland High School massacre that left 17 dead in Florida.
The Washington Post previously reported that authorities were exploring charges against Parker.
Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard E. Gwynn empaneled the 11-person special grand jury last April, asking it to probe “any actions or omissions by current or former employees of the Newport News School System which may have contributed to this shooting.”
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The Richneck shooting unfolded on Jan. 6, 2023.
Newport News police said the 6-year-old boy brought the gun to school in a backpack, after grabbing it from his mother’s purse, which was on the top of a dresser in their home. The gun was not protected with a trigger lock.
Zwerner’s lawsuit alleges she reported to Parker on the day of the shooting that the 6-year-old was in a “violent mood” and threatened to beat up a kindergartner.
“Upon hearing that information, Assistant Principal Parker had no response, refusing even to look up at Plaintiff when she expressed her concerns,” the suit alleges.
A short time later, two students told a reading specialist the boy had a gun in his backpack, according to the lawsuit.
When questioned, the 6-year-old told the reading specialist he did not have a gun, but would not let her see his backpack, according to the lawsuit. During recess, Zwerner said, she told the reading specialist she thought the boy had taken something out of his backpack and put in his pocket.
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The reading specialist then searched the boy’s backpack but did not find the gun, according to the lawsuit. The specialist went to the office and told Parker that students had said he had a gun, but Parker allegedly responded that the boy’s pockets were too small to hold a gun and did nothing.
Zwerner’s lawsuit alleges that after recess, a student told a teacher that the 6-year-old boy had shown him a gun on the playground and threatened to shoot the boy if he told anyone. The teacher also relayed that information to Parker through an intermediary, according to the lawsuit.
Roughly 45 minutes before the shooting, a guidance counselor also warned Parker about the boy possibly having a weapon, but she rebuffed his request to search the boy, Zwerner’s lawsuit alleges.
Newport News police said the boy pulled out a gun around 2 p.m. on Jan. 6 and fired a single shot at Zwerner as she was teaching a lesson in her first-grade classroom.
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“I remember the gun going off. I remember feeling something,” Zwerner said in one of her only interviews about the incident. “I was terrified. In that moment, my initial reaction was, ‘Your kids need to get out of here. This is not a safe classroom anymore.’”
The bullet tore through Zwerner’s hand and chest, but she managed to evacuate all her students from the classroom, police said. Zwerner was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening wounds. She has since been released and is recovering at home after multiple surgeries.
The boy was restrained by a teacher before he was taken into custody by police. He is now in the care of his great-grandfather, who has said the boy is enrolled at a new school.
Gwynn said previously that the boy would not be charged in connection with the shooting.
The shooting touched off a firestorm in Newport News. Both parents and teachers denounced Richneck officials’ and the school district’s handling of the shooting and other violence on the city’s campuses, where the Richneck shooting was the third in roughly 18 months.
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The Newport News School Board ousted Superintendent George Parker III in the wake of the incident and Richneck’s principal was reassigned. A new leadership team has taken over running the school.
Emily Mapp Brannon, an attorney who is representing seven Richneck families in civil suits over the shooting, said in a statement that “these charges suggest that there is sufficient evidence that the students of Richneck were placed in peril by the very hands entrusted to protect them.”
“For the first time in over a year, the families may find comfort in knowing that the administration is being held accountable,” Brannon said.
