A Virginia assistant principal ignored repeated warnings that a 6-year-old student had a gun, which was later used to shoot his teacher, a prosecutor said during opening statements in the trial on Tuesday.
Trial of Ebony Parker Begins
Ebony Parker, former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, faces eight counts of felony child neglect in connection with the January 2023 shooting that wounded first-grade teacher Abby Zwerner.
Special prosecutor Josh Jenkins told the jury that several school employees alerted Parker that the child likely had a gun in his backpack. However, Parker allegedly did nothing, stating only that the child's mother would soon pick him up.
“Does she say ‘search the child’? No,” Jenkins said. “Does she say ‘call the police,’ or does she call the police? No. Does she remove the child from the classroom and separate him? No. She didn’t even get up from her desk. Warning after warning after warning, she did nothing.”
But defense attorney Curtis Rogers argued that teachers should have taken action themselves if they believed a gun was present, such as separating the child from other students. “That did not occur,” Rogers said. “Each one of those individuals had the authority to move those classmates.”
Rogers emphasized that the prosecution must prove Parker acted with reckless disregard for human life. He shifted blame to Zwerner and other staff who had contact with the child before the shooting.
School policy required that crisis situations be reported to an administrator, who must take action. A school counselor requested permission to search the child, but Parker denied it because only administrators or security officers could conduct searches. The school's security officer was absent that day.
Jenkins noted that Parker was the only person with both the authority to act and knowledge of the threat. “There was only one person in the school that day that had both the authority to act and the knowledge of the ongoing crisis, and that person, you will see, was Dr. Parker,” he said.
Testimony from the Victim
Zwerner, the first witness, testified that the student had slammed her phone to the ground days earlier and was in a “violent” mood on the day of the shooting. During recess, he wore an oversized jacket with both hands in his pockets. Zwerner texted a reading specialist about this, who had already been alerted by students about the gun and reported it to Parker.
After recess, the student continued wearing the jacket in class, where he shot Zwerner at a reading table. She spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, underwent six surgeries, and has limited use of her left hand. A bullet narrowly missed her heart and remains lodged in her chest.
The eight counts correspond to each bullet in the gun. Each count carries a maximum five-year prison sentence. Criminal charges against school officials after a school shooting are rare, experts say. The incident shocked the military shipbuilding community and the nation.
In a civil trial last November, a jury awarded Zwerner $10 million, with Parker as the sole defendant. The student's mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges.
