A former assistant principal at a Virginia elementary school where a 6-year-old student shot first-grade teacher Abigail Zwerner now faces criminal charges.
A special grand jury in Newport News finds that Ebony Parker showed “reckless disregard” for the well-being of Richneck Elementary School students on Jan. 6, 2023, according to a criminal indictment unsealed Tuesday.
The charging document alleges that Parker, who was responsible for Richneck students, “feloniously did commit a willful act or omission in the care of such students, in a manner so gross, wanton and culpable as to show reckless disregard for human life.”
Parker, 39, is charged with eight felony counts which are each punishable by up to five years in prison.
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Her attorney, Curtis Rogers, did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Parker and other school administrators are already defendants in a $40 million lawsuit brought by Zwerner that claims Richneck officials ignored warning signs ahead of the shooting. A complaint filed in Newport News Circuit Court contends that other staffers had told Parker the boy might be carrying a gun on the day of the shooting.
Newport News police have said the student who shot Zwerner retrieved his mother’s handgun from atop a dresser at home and brought the weapon to school concealed in a backpack.
Zwerner’s lawsuit describes a series of warnings that school employees gave administrators before the shooting. The lawsuit said those warnings began with Zwerner telling Parker that the boy “was in a violent mood,” had threatened to beat up a kindergartner and stared down a security officer in the lunchroom.
Abby Zwerner, a teacher who was shot at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Va., by her 6-year-old student last year, talks to reporter Peter Dujardin, on Wednesday in Virginia Beach, Va. (Stephen M. Katz /The Virginian-Pilot via AP)
Other teachers warned Parker their students spotted the boy with a gun at recess, but the assistant principal allegedly “forbade” them from searching the boy’s backpack a second time, believed his pockets were too small to hide a handgun and said his mother would pick him up at dismissal, according to the complaint.
The boy shot Zwerner later in class as she was sitting at a reading table in front of the room, police said. In interviews, Zwerner said the bullet passed through her left hand, rupturing the middle bone, index finger and thumb. The gunshot then entered her upper chest and collapsed one of her lungs.
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Deja Taylor, the mother of the boy who shot Zwerner, was sentenced to two years in prison for felony neglect and federal weapons charges. (Newport News Police Department)
Zwerner’s lawsuit states she spent two weeks in the hospital and required multiple surgeries to recover, although she has ongoing emotional trauma.
“There’s some things that I’ll never forget, and I just will never forget the look on his face that he gave me while he pointed the gun directly at me,” Zwerner told NBC on March 21, the first time she spoke out following the shooting. “That’s something that I will never forget. It’s changed me. It’s changed my life.”
The targets of Zwerner’s lawsuit, including a former superintendent and the Newport News school board have sought to block the case from proceeding. They claim Zwerner’s injuries are covered by Virginia’s worker compensation law. However, their attempts to block the lawsuit have so far proved unsuccessful, and a trial date is scheduled for January.
The mother of the boy who shot Zwerner, Deja Taylor, was sentenced to two years in prison for felony neglect and federal weapons charges.
Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and the Associated Press contributed to this report.