A first-grade Virginia teacher who was shot and seriously wounded by her 6-year-old student has filed a lawsuit seeking $40 million in damages from Newport News school officials.
Abby Zwerner, a 25-year-old teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia was shot in the hand and chest on Jan. 6 as she sat at a reading table in her classroom.
The lawsuit names as defendants the Newport News School Board, former Superintendent George Parker III, former Richneck principal Briana Foster Newton and former Richneck assistant principal Ebony Parker.
The lawsuit alleges that Parker “had no response, refusing even to look up at (Zwerner) when she expressed her concerns.”.
That teacher then contacted the office and told a music teacher, who answered the phone, what the boy told her about seeing the gun.
The music teacher said that when he informed Parker, she said the backpack had already been searched and “took no further action,” according to the lawsuit.
About an hour later, the boy pulled the gun out of his pocket, aimed it at Zwerner and shot her, the lawsuit states. »