Teacher Shot by First-Grader Wins $10 Million Against School Administrator Who Ignored Gun Warnings

On the morning of January 6, 2023, staff members at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, warned the assistant principal multiple times that a first-grade student had a firearm. The warnings were not acted on. No search was conducted. The student shot first-grade teacher Abby Zwerner in her classroom that afternoon. The bullet struck her left hand and lodged in her chest, where it remains.

Zwerner filed a civil lawsuit against Ebony Parker, the assistant principal on duty that day. Three other school administrators and the school board were named as defendants initially but were dismissed before trial. Parker did not testify during the proceedings.

The central legal challenge was Virginia's sovereign immunity doctrine, which ordinarily shields government employees from personal liability. Attorneys Kevin Biniazan and Jeffrey Breit of Breit Biniazan, along with co-counsel Diane Toscano, argued that Parker's conduct crossed the line from ordinary negligence into gross negligence, a threshold that strips immunity. The jury agreed.

On November 6, 2025, the Newport News jury returned a verdict of $10 million for Zwerner. Interest accrues from June 1, 2024. Virginia Lawyers Weekly, in a standalone analysis published December 1, 2025, noted that the verdict has potential significance for future negligence claims against public-entity employees across Virginia, because it demonstrates how gross negligence can pierce sovereign immunity at the individual administrator level.

Parker separately faces eight felony counts of child abuse in a criminal case. As of the Virginia Lawyers Weekly report, post-trial motions in the civil case were being scheduled. A subsequent report by WAVY TV 10 indicated the judge upheld the $10 million jury award.