A teacher warned a school admin about a 6-year-old with a gun multiple times, and what happened next is now a $40 million case

A jury in Virginia has decided to give $10 million to a former elementary school teacher who got shot by one of her students back in January 2023. The teacher, Abigail Zwerner, had asked for $40 million from the school’s ex-assistant principal, Ebony Parker, saying she did not listen when people told her a child had a gun at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News.

What happened was really serious. On January 6, 2023, Zwerner was teaching her class when a 6-year-old student shot her. She was 25 years old at the time. The bullet hit her chest and hand, and it came very close to her heart.

According to Fox News, doctors could not take the bullet out, so it is still stuck in her chest. Before all this happened, other teachers and staff at the school had tried to tell Parker that something was wrong and that the kid might have a weapon.

When people in charge don’t listen, bad things can happen

When the case went to trial, Zwerner’s lawyer Kevin Biniazan said Parker should have done something when people kept telling her about the gun. “A gun changes everything,” Biniazan said. “You stop and you investigate.” The lawyer explained that several people who worked at the school tried to warn Parker about what the child was doing, but she apparently did not take them seriously.

Parker’s lawyer, Sandra Douglas, told the jury that her client made the best choices she could with the information she had right then and there.

“Your job is to consider only what Dr. Parker knew at the time,” Douglas said to the jury. She also said that Zwerner might not be telling the complete truth about how bad her life got after the shooting, especially since she was asking for so much money.

But Zwerner’s lawyer said this was not just about money. He told the jury that what happened changed Zwerner’s whole life. Because of her injuries, doctors think she will only live until she is 53 years old now. The lawyer wanted the jury to understand this was not just about what happens tomorrow but about all the years Zwerner has lost.

When Zwerner talked to the court herself, she described how scary the shooting was for her. “The last thing I remember at the school, I thought I was dying. I thought I had died. I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven,” she said. “Then it all went black. So, then I thought I wasn’t going there.” What happened to her shows why keeping children safe in schools needs to be taken more seriously.

The jury thought about everything for about half a day before they decided Zwerner was right. Her lawyers put out a statement saying this decision proves that what happened at Richneck Elementary was not okay.

They said the city and the schools did not do their job to keep teachers and students safe, so they had to go to court to make things right. Stories like this keep coming up as problems with school safety make people wonder who should be held responsible when adults do not do what they should.

This whole situation is not finished yet. Parker still has to go to another trial, this time a criminal one, where she is charged with eight felony counts of child neglect.

There is one charge for each of the eight bullets that put students in danger in Zwerner’s classroom. The mother of the child who did the shooting, Deja Taylor, is in prison right now serving two years after she said she was guilty of child neglect and gun charges.