Assistant principal “did nothing” when told about 6-year-old with gun, prosecutor says

The assistant principal of a Virginia elementary school where a 6-year-old student shot his teacher in 2023 “He did nothing” about possessing a gun, despite repeated warnings from his colleagues, a prosecutor said in court Tuesday.

Before the January 2023 shooting at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, school employees told Ebony Parker they believed the student had a gun in his backpack, but she dismissed their concerns, special prosecutor Josh Jenkins said. Parker now faces eight counts of child neglect for her role in the incident, which left a first-grade teacher injured. Abby Zwerner.

During opening statements in the trial, Jenkins said Parker told employees who approached her about the child’s gun that her mother would arrive soon to pick him up for the day.

“Did she say ‘search the child’? No,” Jenkins told the jury. “Does she say ‘call the police’ or does she call the police? No. Does she remove the child from class and separate him? No.

“She didn’t even get up from her desk. She didn’t leave her desk. Warning after warning after warning, she did nothing.”

But Parker’s attorney, Curtis Rogers, said teachers should have done something if they thought a gun was present, saying they should have at least separated the child from about 19 other students in the class.

“That didn’t happen,” Rogers said. “Each of these individuals had the power to move these classmates.”

Rogers said the prosecution must prove that Parker’s actions demonstrated a callous disregard for human life. Instead, Rogers placed blame on Zwerner and others who had witnessed the child’s movements well before the shooting.

“What about these other people who had direct contact with this child? » Rogers said.

School policy at the time required crisis situations to be reported to an administrator who must take action, Jenkins said. A school counselor even asked for permission to search the child, but Parker denied the request because searches could only be conducted by an administrator or security guard. The school security officer was at another school at the time.

That left Parker and the school principal with the authority to act, but the principal knew nothing about the threat because Parker had not told him about it, Jenkins said.

“There was only one person in the school that day who had both the authority to act and the knowledge of the crisis at hand, and that person, you will see, was Dr. Parker,” Jenkins said.

Zwerner was the first witness called to testify at the trial. She said the student had thrown her phone on the ground a few days earlier and was in a “violent” mood the day of the shooting.

During recess in the school playground, the student wore an oversized jacket with both hands in his pockets the entire time. Zwerner said she sent a text message with the sighting to a reading specialist who had been tipped off earlier by students about the gun and reported it to Parker.

After recess, the student continued to wear the jacket into the classroom, where Zwerner was shot while sitting on a reading table. Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, had to undergo six surgeries and does not have full use of his left hand. A bullet grazed his heart and remained in his chest.

The eight charges Parker faces include one for each of the bullets contained in the gun brought into the classroom, prosecutors said. Each count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison if convicted.

Criminal charges against school officials after a school shooting are quite rare, experts say. The filming sent shockwaves In this military shipbuilding community and the country at large, many wonder how a child so young was able to access a gun and shoot his teacher.

A jury $10 million awarded to Zwerner in a civil trial last November in which Parker, who no longer works at the school, was the sole defendant.

The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison on child neglect and federal weapons charges.