The teacher who was shot by her six-year-old student has filed a lawsuit against her school district, seeking $40million in damages.
Attorneys for Abby Zwerner filed the civil suit in Newport News Circuit Court on Monday, alleging that administrators at Richneck Elementary School ignored multiple warnings from teachers about the student.
Zwerner was shot around 2.00pm on January 6. She was reading to her first grade class when the student, who is referred to as ‘John Doe’ in the suit, retrieved the gun from his pocket and fired a single round.
The suit names the entire Newport News School Board as defendants, as well as Superintendent George Parker III, Richneck Principal Briana Foster-Newton, and Richneck Assistant Principal Ebony Parker.
Zwerner’s attorney, Diane Toscano, said the school administrators were warned about the student multiple times, but were ‘paralyzed by apathy’ and took no further precautions.
The lawsuit alleges that the student had a ‘history of random violence’ against both teachers and students.
‘All Defendants knew that John Doe attacked students and teachers alike, and his motivation to injure was directed toward anyone in his path, both in and out of school, and was not limited to teachers while at the school,’ the suit reads.
In one instance, the student ‘strangled and choked’ his kindergarten teacher the year before the incident on January 6.
John Doe finished his kindergarten year in a different school after the choking incident, but was allowed to return to Richneck for first grade.
His schedule at Richneck had to be modified again when he returned, after an incident where he was ‘chasing students around the playground with a belt in an effort to whip them with it, as well as cursing at staff and teachers’ the suit alleges.
Teachers ‘regularly’ brought up concerns about the student, which were ‘dismissed’ by the administrators. ‘Often when he was taken to the school office to address his behavior, he would return to the classroom shortly thereafter with some type of reward, such as a piece of candy.’
John Doe’s parents also refused to give permission to place their son in a special education classroom. Instead, they agreed to accompany their child during the school day.
However, the student’s parents were not present on January 6, and John Doe went the entire school day without a one-to-one companion.
The suit also goes through the events directly leading up to the shooting, providing significantly more information about the terrifying incident.
The conflict with Zwerner appears to have started two days prior on Wednesday, January 4, when John Doe took his teacher’s cell phone.
After refusing to give it back, ‘he slammed the cellphone on the ground so hard that it cracked and shattered,’ the suit reads.
Zwerner called a guidance counselor, who came to the classroom only for John Doe to call the adults ‘b***hes.’ He was suspended for one day – Thursday, January 5 – for his misconduct.
John Doe returned to school that Friday, where he ‘threatened to beat up a kindergartner during lunchtime, and angrily stared down a security officer in the lunchroom.’
Zwerner reported the incidents to Assistant Principal Ebony Parker, but was dismissed. ‘Upon hearing that information, Assistant Principal Parker had no response, refusing even to look up at Plaintiff when she expressed concerns.’
At 11.45am that morning, two students reported to a reading specialist that John Doe brought a gun into school. The student refused to let the reading specialist search his backpack.
Staff members were finally able to search his backpack during recess, but both Zwerner and the reading specialist noticed him remove an object beforehand and place it in the pockets of his sweatshirt.
The reading specialist told the Assistant Principal about the gun, she told her ‘John Doe’s pockets were too small to hold a handgun and did nothing.’
Eventually, one of John Doe’s friends returned from recess crying. He told a third teacher that John Doe had shown him the gun, but ‘said he would hurt him if he told anyone.’
A total of four teachers and the guidance counselor who suspended him on Wednesday reported the potential threats to the administration that day, but Assistant Principal Parker still refused to take further action.
When the guidance counselor asked to search John Doe’s person, Parker allegedly refused.
‘Within an hour of Assistant Principal Parker’s specific refusal to allow anyone to search John Doe’s person for a firearm, despite being informed on multiple occasions that the firearm had been seen on his person, John Doe pulled the firearm out of his pocket, aimed it at Plaintiff and shot her as she was seated at her reading table in the classroom,’ the suit states.
The lawsuit is asking for $40million in damages, which her attorneys said is a fair sum for the amount physical and emotional injuries she sustained.
‘She’s got permanent injuries, her hand will never be the same,’ her attorney Jeffrey Breit told Today. ‘She’s left with a bullet and fragments in an area of her brachial plexus – the surgeons said they can’t remove it.’
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