Abby Zwerner walked into a Newport News courtroom and told jurors what she says school leaders refused to act on: a first-grader who had already choked a teacher, thrown furniture, and threatened to light one educator on fire before he brought a loaded gun to Richneck Elementary and shot her through the hand and chest.
The testimony came during the criminal trial of Ebony Parker, the former assistant principal now facing eight felony charges for her alleged failure to act on repeated warnings that the boy posed a danger. Parker has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, she faces years in prison for charges that include felony child abuse and neglect, as Fox News reported.
The case has become a flashpoint in the national debate over school safety and administrative accountability. It tests a question most school shooting cases never reach: can the adults who allegedly ignored the warning signs be held criminally responsible?
Zwerner testified that the six-year-old boy displayed escalating behavioral problems well before January 6, 2023, the day he pulled a 9mm handgun from his backpack in her first-grade classroom. She described a pattern she characterized as "violent" warning signs that she and other staff members flagged to administrators.
The boy had choked another teacher, Zwerner told the jury. He threw furniture. On one occasion, he told a staff member he wanted to set her on fire. These were not isolated outbursts buried in confidential files. Zwerner testified that she and colleagues raised alarms directly with school leadership.
On the morning of the shooting, Zwerner said she warned Parker that she believed the boy had a weapon. A fellow teacher had reported that the child threatened to beat up another student. Zwerner told jurors that a search of the boy's backpack was requested but never carried out before he opened fire. The case raises the same core question at the heart of the felony indictment CLN previously covered: whether Parker had the authority and the obligation to intervene and chose not to.
Parker's defense team has argued that she followed existing school protocols and that the shooting was not foreseeable. Her attorneys have maintained that other administrators and school district policies share responsibility for any systemic failures.
Zwerner's testimony painted a picture of a teacher who felt trapped between a dangerous student and an administration she says refused to act. She described going to Parker's office on the morning of January 6 after receiving a tip from another educator that the boy might have a gun.
Zwerner testified that Parker did not search the child or remove him from the classroom. The boy returned to Zwerner's room. Shortly after, he drew the handgun and fired a single round. The bullet struck Zwerner's hand and then penetrated her chest. She survived, but the injuries were severe. Zwerner has described lasting physical damage, including impaired use of her shooting hand.
Prosecutors called additional school staff who corroborated the timeline. Multiple employees testified that concerns about the boy's behavior had been raised to administrators on several occasions in the weeks and months before the shooting. One staff member testified that she told Parker the boy's pockets appeared to be "bulging" on the day of the shooting and asked that he be searched.
The prosecution's theory is straightforward: Parker had specific, actionable warnings that a child in her school posed a violent threat, including a same-day report that he might be armed, and she failed to take the basic step of searching him. That failure, prosecutors argue, constitutes criminal neglect of the children and staff in her care.
Parker's attorneys have challenged the prosecution's narrative on several fronts. They have argued that Parker was not the sole decision-maker at Richneck Elementary and that the school district's own policies were inadequate. The defense has suggested that other administrators, including the principal, bore equal or greater responsibility for safety protocols.
Defense counsel has also questioned whether the warnings Zwerner described were as specific and urgent as the prosecution claims. Parker's team has pointed out that the boy was six years old and that no prior incident involved a weapon. The defense has argued that a reasonable administrator would not necessarily have concluded that the child would bring a loaded firearm to school.
The broader question of safety failures inside American schools looms over the trial. Critics of the prosecution worry that holding a single assistant principal criminally liable could set a precedent that discourages educators from taking administrative roles. Supporters counter that criminal accountability is the only mechanism with enough teeth to force school leaders to take threats seriously.
Parker faces a total of eight felony charges. The indictment includes counts of felony child abuse and neglect. Each count corresponds to a child or staff member prosecutors say Parker's inaction placed in danger. Zwerner is the most prominent victim, but the charges reflect the broader classroom of first-graders who were present when the gun went off.
No child other than the shooter was physically injured, but prosecutors have argued that every student in that room was placed in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm. Under Virginia law, the felony child abuse and neglect statute does not require physical injury to sustain a conviction. It requires proof that the defendant's willful act or omission created a substantial risk of harm to a child.
That legal standard is central to the trial. The jury will need to determine whether Parker's alleged failure to search the boy constituted a willful omission and whether that omission created the kind of substantial risk the statute targets. Investigators will also need the jury to accept that the warnings Parker received were specific enough to trigger a duty to act.
The shooting at Richneck Elementary exposed deep fractures in the Newport News school system. In the aftermath, the school district conducted an internal review and implemented new safety protocols, including stricter search policies and updated threat-assessment procedures.
Zwerner filed a $40 million civil lawsuit against the Newport News school system, alleging that administrators ignored her repeated warnings. That case settled for $9 million, Fox News reported. The settlement did not include an admission of wrongdoing by the district.
The boy's mother, Deja Taylor, pleaded guilty to a federal charge of making a false statement while purchasing the firearm used in the shooting. She was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison. She also faced state charges of felony child neglect and was sentenced to two years in state prison, to be served after her federal sentence. The incidents of youth violence tied to school communities across the country have kept public pressure on administrators and law enforcement alike.
The boy, who was six at the time, was not charged. Under Virginia law, children under the age of seven cannot be tried in juvenile court. He was temporarily detained under an emergency custody order and later placed in a hospital for evaluation.
The trial is expected to last several days. Prosecutors plan to call additional school employees and law enforcement witnesses. The defense is expected to present testimony from educators and administrators who will argue that Parker acted within the scope of normal school procedures.
The central factual dispute is narrow but decisive. Did Parker receive a specific warning that the boy might be armed on January 6, 2023? And if she did, was her decision not to search him a willful omission that created a substantial risk of harm? The prosecution says yes on both counts. The defense says the warnings were ambiguous and that Parker's response was reasonable under the circumstances.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether Parker made any written record of the warnings she allegedly received that morning. Investigators have not said whether internal communications, such as emails or text messages, corroborate Zwerner's account of the timeline. That evidentiary question could prove critical. The growing debate over holding adults accountable for youth-related violence has given this trial a national audience far beyond Newport News.
Zwerner's testimony gave the jury something statistics and policy debates cannot: the voice of a teacher who says she begged for help and was ignored, then took a bullet in her own classroom.
If Parker is convicted, the case will stand as one of the first successful criminal prosecutions of a school administrator for failing to prevent a shooting. If she is acquitted, it will raise hard questions about whether the criminal justice system can reach the institutional failures that allow school violence to happen.
Either way, a first-grade teacher took the stand and told a jury that she saw the danger coming, told the people in charge, and watched them do nothing. That testimony will not be easy for anyone in that courtroom to forget.
