🆕 prologue 10 prediction verdict but not my opinion

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NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — A jury in Virginia began deliberating Wednesday in a $40 million lawsuit filed against a former school administrator accused of ignoring repeated warnings that a 6-year-old had a gun hours before a teacher was shot.

Closing arguments were held earlier Wednesday following a weeklong trial in the lawsuit filed by former teacher Abby Zwerner against Ebony Parker, a former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News.

Zwerner was shot in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom. Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries and does not have the full use of her left hand. A bullet narrowly missed her heart and remains in her chest.

A Virginia jury heard closing arguments Wednesday in a $40 million civil case in which they will decide whether an assistant principal acted with gross negligence when a then-6-year-old student shot his first grade teacher.

The teacher, Abby Zwerner, was shot in January 2023 in her classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia. Her complaint alleged the school's assistant principal at the time, Ebony Parker, failed to act after being informed multiple times that her student had a firearm on the day of the incident and did not let staff search him prior to the shooting.

The civil complaint alleged Parker acted with gross negligence and in "reckless disregard" for Zwerner's safety and claimed Zwerner continues to suffer pain and emotional distress over the shooting.

"Those choices that she made to treat Jan. 6, 2023, like any other day, even though a gun should change everything, is why we're here," Zwerner's attorney, Kevin Biniazan, said during closing arguments on Wednesday.

Biniazan argued there were multiple opportunities for Parker to investigate and take immediate action after several school workers "sounded the alarm" about a possible gun in the school. One, a reading specialist, testified during the trial she reported to Parker that two students told her the 6-year-old boy, referred to as JT during the trial, had a gun in his backpack.

When she later searched JT's backpack during recess, it wasn't there, but she said Zwerner told her she had seen him remove something from his backpack beforehand and put it in his pocket. Another teacher testified a student told her in tears he saw JT with a gun and bullet during recess and JT said he would hurt everyone if the student told anyone. The teacher said she reported this to the front office, and a music teacher who answered the phone testified that he relayed this to Parker.

A guidance counselor testified that, when he asked about searching JT for a gun, Parker said to wait for the student's mom to come pick him up from school. Before that happened, the student took the gun out of his pocket and shot Zwerner, he said.

Biniazan said the defense will attempt to play the "blame game" and point the finger at others on staff, but each of them had a "piece of the puzzle" while Parker "had the entire puzzle."

"A gun changes everything. You stop and you investigate," he said. "You get to the bottom of it to know whether that gun is real and on campus so you can deal with it. But that's not what happened."

During the defense's closing arguments, an attorney for Parker said the case is about "real-time judgments, not hindsight judgments," and the low likelihood that a 6-year-old boy would have a firearm that day and shoot his teacher.
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