A jury has awarded $10 million to a former first-grade teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student in her classroom in 2023.
Abby Zwerner filed a lawsuit naming former assistant principal Ebony Parker as a defendant, claiming negligence in the wake of the shooting at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia. The jury reached its verdict on Thursday, Nov. 6, according to CNN and WTKR.
Zwerner had sought $40 million, citing “physical pain and mental anguish” stemming from the traumatic incident. She has endured four surgeries and still has a bullet lodged in her body.
“I thought I had died. I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven,” Zwerner testified during the trial, recalling the moment she was shot. “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.”
The lawsuit claimed Parker failed to act despite multiple reports that the student had a gun. Four different people reportedly raised concerns with Parker about the child on the day of the shooting.
Parker’s attorney, Daniel Hogan, defended her in court, saying, “No one could have imagined that a 6-year-old, first-grade student would bring a firearm into a school. You will be able to judge for yourself whether or not this was foreseeable. That’s the heart of this case.”
In addition to the lawsuit, Parker faces child abuse charges connected to the shooting, according to Virginia court records.