NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — A former assistant principal at an elementary school in Virginia is due in court for trial, accused of ignoring warnings that a 6-year-old student brought a loaded gun to school that was later used to shoot his first-grade teacher.Ebony Parker’s criminal trial is set to start Monday in Newport News, Virginia.Parker is charged with eight counts of felony child neglect, one for each of the eight bullets in the gun that was brought into the classroom of Richneck Elementary schoolteacher Abby Zwerner in January 2023, prosecutors have said. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison upon conviction.The charges allege Parker “did commit a willful act or omission in the care of such students, in a manner so gross, wanton and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life,” according to court documents.
Criminal charges against school officials following a school shooting are quite rare, experts say. The shooting sent shock waves through this military shipbuilding community and the country at large, with many wondering how a child so young could gain access to a gun and shoot his teacher.
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Last November a jury awarded $10 million to Zwerner, siding with her claims in a lawsuit that Parker, an ex-assistant principal, ignored repeated warnings that the child had a gun.Zwerner was shot as she sat at a reading table in her classroom. Sher 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.
