When Abigail Zwerner walked into the courtroom this week, nearly two years after being shot by her six-year-old student, the weight of that January morning in 2023 still lingered visibly. The former first-grade teacher from Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, took the stand to recount the traumatic events that nearly cost her life, and to hold accountable the school official she says failed to prevent the unthinkable.
Her $40 million lawsuit against the former assistant principal, Ebony Parker, has drawn national attention—not only for its staggering details, but also for the troubling questions it raises about accountability, school safety, and the prevention of violence in classrooms once considered among the safest places for children. Zwerner’s testimony was emotional, harrowing, and deeply personal. “I thought I was dying, I thought I had died,” she said through tears, recalling the moment a bullet tore through her hand and chest as she taught her first-grade class.
The incident shocked the nation not only because of the victim’s bravery and survival but because of the age of the shooter—a six-year-old boy who, investigators say, had shown troubling behavior in the days leading up to the attack. At the heart of Abigail Zwerner’s lawsuit is the allegation that administrators, particularly assistant principal Ebony Parker, ignored multiple warnings that the child might have brought a gun to school that day.
A Day That Changed Everything
The morning of January 6, 2023, began like any other for Abigail Zwerner. She was teaching her class at Richneck Elementary, engaging her first graders in a reading lesson, when the situation took a deadly turn. Without warning, the six-year-old student pulled out a firearm and fired a single shot at her. The bullet pierced through her hand—raised instinctively in defense—and lodged in her upper chest. The young teacher collapsed to the floor as chaos erupted around her.
Abigail Zwerner’s memory of those moments remains vivid. “The look on the student’s face is the large memory that I have,” she told the jury. “I thought I was on my way to heaven or in heaven, but then it all got black.” Two of her colleagues rushed to her side, applying pressure to her wound as they waited for help. It was in that moment, she said, that she realized just how badly she had been hurt.
The shooting shocked the small coastal city of Newport News and sparked a national conversation about gun access, parental responsibility, and mental health in children. What made the tragedy even more incomprehensible was the age of the shooter—a first grader barely tall enough to reach a desk, let alone capable of comprehending the devastation he had caused.
Abby Zwerner, a former Virginia teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student in her classroom in 2023, testified Thursday that she thought she had died in the shooting, and described the "blank look" on the student's face moments before. CBS News’ @MacFarlaneNews reports. pic.twitter.com/d2w9kXdJyQ
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) October 30, 2025
In the days following the shooting, investigators revealed that several staff members had raised alarms about the student’s behavior that morning. At least three warnings, according to court filings, were reportedly given to administrators—including Parker—that the child might be carrying a gun. Yet, despite these concerns, no search was conducted, and classes continued as usual. Within 45 minutes, the gun went off inside Abigail Zwerner’s classroom.
Zwerner’s lawsuit accuses Parker of gross negligence and reckless disregard for human life, alleging that she failed to act despite multiple credible warnings. In one particularly disturbing instance cited in the lawsuit, Abigail Zwerner herself had told Parker that the child was in a “violent mood” and had threatened another student. Parker allegedly responded by refusing to “even look up” and offered no response.
Legal Battle Over Negligence and Responsibility
The civil trial has placed the former assistant principal, Ebony Parker, at the center of scrutiny. Abigail Zwerner’s legal team argues that Parker’s inaction constitutes a “willful act or omission in the care of students” so severe that it demonstrated “a reckless disregard for human life.” The lawsuit seeks $40 million in damages, reflecting not only the physical suffering Zwerner endured but also the lasting emotional and psychological trauma she continues to face.
During opening statements, Parker’s attorney, Daniel Hogan, sought to reframe the narrative. He argued that the case suffers from what he called “hindsight bias,” suggesting that no one—least of all a school administrator—could have reasonably predicted that a six-year-old would bring a loaded gun to school and intentionally shoot a teacher. “No one could have imagined that a 6-year-old first grade student would bring a firearm to an elementary school,” Hogan told the jury.
“The jury will have to answer hard questions: Was it reasonably foreseeable? Was Dr. Parker indifferent? Did she fail to exercise some degree of care, even if it didn’t work out?” The defense’s position reflects a larger debate within education and law enforcement circles—how far the duty of care extends when dealing with unpredictable acts of violence, especially those committed by very young children. While Parker faces eight counts of felony child neglect in a separate criminal case, her defense maintains that she acted within reason based on the information she had at the time.
Abigail Zwerner’s testimony, however, paints a different picture. She recounted multiple incidents in which the student had exhibited violent behavior and issued threats, including one episode where he allegedly threatened to harm another child. These incidents, she claims, were brought to Parker’s attention but met with indifference. The lawsuit describes Parker as dismissive and unresponsive, refusing to even engage with concerned staff members who reported the child’s troubling conduct.
Beyond the question of negligence, the case underscores the broader issue of systemic failures within school safety protocols. How could multiple warnings go unheeded? What policies were in place to respond to threats involving firearms, and were they followed? For many parents and educators, the answers remain deeply unsettling.
The tragedy also reverberated beyond the school’s walls. In the aftermath of the shooting, the student’s mother was charged and later sentenced to nearly four years in prison for child neglect and federal weapons offenses. Authorities found that the firearm used in the shooting—a legally purchased handgun—had been left accessible to the child at home. The boy himself was not charged due to his age but was placed under the care of a relative and reportedly enrolled in another school.
Life After the Shooting
For Abigail Zwerner, recovery has been a long and painful process—physically, emotionally, and professionally. After the shooting, she underwent multiple surgeries to repair the severe damage caused by the bullet that traveled through her hand and into her upper body. Though she survived, the injuries left her with chronic pain and limited use of her hand. “Because of my physical injuries,” she testified, “I can’t do little things like open a bag of potato crisps or a water bottle.”
Her testimony also revealed the emotional toll of surviving such a violent act, particularly one committed by a child she had taught and cared for. Zwerner described how the incident has changed her relationships and sense of connection with others. “The best I can explain it, I still feel connected and close, but it’s also that feeling of distance, a little numbness,” she told the court. “It’s like I know I trust the person I’m with, I love them, I know them, there’s just something that’s different, I can’t necessarily put it into words.”
These words echo the deep psychological scars left by acts of school violence—trauma that often lingers long after the physical wounds have healed. For many educators across the country, Zwerner’s ordeal serves as both a cautionary tale and a reminder of the growing threats teachers face in their classrooms.
Since the shooting, Richneck Elementary has implemented significant changes to its security policies, including installing metal detectors and introducing stricter procedures for handling reports of possible weapons. However, for Zwerner and those who stood beside her that day, such measures come too late. Her life, and her sense of safety in the classroom, have been permanently altered.
In the courtroom, as she faced the administrator she accuses of failing to protect her, Zwerner’s composure fluctuated between courage and visible pain. Her mother and sister had testified before her, describing the toll the shooting has taken on their family. When Zwerner took the stand, the room fell silent as she revisited the moment that changed everything. Her words were not just a recounting of events—they were a plea for accountability, for acknowledgment of a failure that should never have happened.
As the civil trial continues, attention will turn to the legal standards of foreseeability and negligence. But for Abigail Zwerner, the heart of the matter lies beyond legal definitions. It lies in the simple, haunting question of whether this tragedy could have been prevented if warnings had been taken seriously.
While the outcome of the lawsuit remains uncertain, the broader implications of the case are clear. It challenges schools, parents, and policymakers to rethink how safety warnings are handled, especially when they involve young children. It also confronts the uncomfortable truth that even elementary classrooms are not immune from the reach of America’s gun violence crisis.
The criminal proceedings that follow will determine whether Parker faces prison time for felony child neglect, but regardless of verdicts and sentences, Abigail Zwerner’s story stands as a chilling reminder of the cost of inaction. Her courage in reliving her trauma on the witness stand is not only a testament to her resilience but also a call for vigilance within every school system entrusted with the safety of children and teachers alike.
The six-year-old who pulled the trigger is now under the care of relatives and attending a different school—his identity shielded by law and his future uncertain. His mother’s conviction underscores a chain of adult failures that began long before the gun entered the classroom. For Zwerner, the question of accountability extends to all who could have intervened but didn’t.
As the courtroom battle unfolds, the image of a young teacher clutching her chest, surrounded by frightened children, remains an indelible one. It speaks to the fragility of safety within spaces that should nurture learning and innocence. And it asks—perhaps more powerfully than any legal argument—whether society has done enough to protect those who dedicate their lives to teaching the youngest among us.