A Virginia first-grade teacher who was shot and critically injured by her 6-year-old student filed a lawsuit Monday for $40 million in damages from school officials, accusing them of gross negligence for allegedly ignoring multiple warnings on day of the shooting
Abby Zwerner, a 25-year-old teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, was shot in the hand and chest on January 6 while sitting at a reading table in her classroom. She spent almost two weeks in the hospital and has had four surgeries since the incident.
The shooting shocked the military shipbuilding community and people across the country who question how such a young boy might have access to a gun and shoot his teacher.
The lawsuit names the Newport News School Board and several school district officials as defendants.
Michelle Price, a school board spokeswoman, and Lisa Surles-Law, school board president, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on the lawsuit.
No one, including the boy, has been charged in the shooting. The superintendent was fired by the school board following the shooting, while the assistant principal resigned. The principal was reassigned to another job within the school district.
Additionally, the board also voted to install metal detectors at all schools in the district, beginning with Richneck, and to purchase clear backpacks for all students.
In the lawsuit, Zwerner’s lawyers say all the defendants knew the boy “had a history of random violence” at school and at home, including an episode the previous year when he “strangled” his kindergarten teacher. infants.
“All of the defendants knew that John Doe attacked students and teachers alike, and his motivation to harm was directed at anyone in his path, both inside and outside the school, and was not limited to teachers while they were at school. ”, reads the lawsuit.
Police in Newport News, Virginia, report that the shooting was not accidental.
School officials removed the boy from Richneck and sent him to another school for the rest of the year, but allowed him to return to Richneck for first grade in the fall of 2022, according to the lawsuit.
He was placed on a modified schedule “because he was chasing students around the playground with a belt in an effort to spank them with it,” and was allegedly cursing at staff and teachers. Under the modified schedule, one of the child’s parents was required to accompany the child during the school day.
“Teacher concerns regarding John Doe’s behavior (were) regularly brought to the attention of Richneck Elementary School administration, and the concerns were consistently dismissed,” the document explains. Often, following he was taken to the office, he would “return to class soon following with some sort of reward, such as candy,” according to the lawsuit.
The boy’s parents did not agree to his being placed in special education classes where he would be with other students with behavior problems, according to the lawsuit.
Zwerner suffered permanent bodily injury, physical pain, mental anguish, lost income and other damages, the lawsuit claims.
Last month, Newport News prosecutor Howard Gwynn argued that his office will not criminally charge the boy because he would not understand the legal system and what a charge means. Gwynn has yet to decide if any adults will be charged.
The boy used his mother’s gun, which police say was purchased legally. A lawyer for the boy’s family claimed the firearm was “secured” on a closet shelf and had a padlock on it.
