NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) — Richneck Elementary School had security and administrative failures leading up to a 6-year-old boy shooting his teacher, Abby Zwerner, more than a year ago, according to a special grand jury investigative report made public Wednesday.
The special grand jury indicted former Richneck assistant principal Dr. Ebony Parker on eight counts of felony child abuse. The eight counts represent each of the eight bullets “that endangered all 15 students in Abby Zwerner’s 1st grade classroom.”
“In releasing the Special Grand Jury’s report, we acknowledge the harm inflicted on all the children in Ms. Zwerner’s classroom that day,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn in a news release. “We also acknowledge the Special Grand Jury’s recommendations for substantial changes to protect students going forward and note that the school district, now led by Superintendent Dr. Michelle Mitchell, has already started implementing additional safety measures. We thank the members of the Special Grand Jury for their diligent service.”
Among the security issues during the 2022-2023 school year cited by the special grand jury:
- The buzzer to the front door of the school was broken for weeks.
- There were no doors on the second-grade classrooms.
- There was no consistent school resource officer at any time and staff had no phone number to contact an SRO in case of an emergency.
- Not all teachers had walkie talkies to communicate with the front office.
- The emergency button did not work in the classrooms.
- There was no consistency in training for the faculty or protocol established for a variety of emergencies.
- The school did not inform the parents of other students in Zwerner’s class that the 6-year-old boy’s parents were allowed to sit with him in class, and the school did not run a background check on either. The boy’s father had a public criminal record and his mother was a habitual drug user.
- The report also outlined the reasons why Ebony Parker was charged with child abuse. The report states that Parker neglected to take any action upon receiving four reports of a potentially dangerous threat.
“Had this been an active shooter situation, the unaddressed security issues at Richneck for the 2022-2023 school year would not have only guaranteed possible success, it would have guaranteed a probably massacre as many more children and faculty would have been seriously injured or fatally wounded,” the grand jury report states.
The report contains a timeline of Jan. 6, 2023. Zwerner took the boy to lunch around 11:15 a.m. where he immediately showed signs of aggression and threatened to beat up a kindergarten student. Zwerner went to Parker’s office to voice her concern. Parker did not respond or look away from her computer. She did not acknowledge Zwerner’s presence.
Around noon on the day of the shooting, Parker was told by a teacher that two students informed her the child had a gun in his backpack, yet Parker did not take action, according to the report.
Around 12:30 p.m., the teacher returned and told Parker she searched the child’s backpack and did not find a gun. The teacher asked if she could search the boy’s backpack and he said no. She sat with him for 45 minutes then left the class and reported back to Parker.
Before recess, the boy changed into an oversized hoodie and was seen rummaging through his backpack.
Zwerner texted the teacher that the child put something in his pocket. Again, Parker took no action.
During recess, the boy went behind a rock wall several times with another boy.
Another teacher told Parker about a “friend” of the 6-year-old boy informing her the child had a gun. Around 1:40 p.m. a counselor informed Parker that the child may have a gun or ammunition and asked if he could search the child. Parker refused to allow him to search the child.
“I told you. I tried to keep you safe. I told you,” the student told teachers moments after the shooting.
The report states that over the course of two hours Parker “acted in complete disregard of the safety of all the children in Ms. Zwerner’s class,” and “most importantly, she … neglected to take any action upon receiving four reports of a potentially dangerous threat.”
When the boy pulled the trigger and shot Zwerner from less than six feet away, she looked down and saw a pool of blood forming. He did not change his facial expression as he tried to shoot again, but the gun jammed due to the boy’s lack of strength, according to the report. The gun, according to the report, had “seven additional bullets ready to fire if not for the firearm jamming.”
The boy’s classmates ran out of the room. The report mentioned the lasting effects the shooting had on the boy’s six and seven-year-old classmates who now regularly attend therapy and suffer from PTSD. One boy refuses to speak about the shooting.
Parker, who was in the main office at that time, locked herself in her office when she was told someone’s been shot and did not open the door until police arrived. A grandmother and a young boy were left to fend for themselves in the main office, with the boy hiding behind a copy machine. Principal Briana Foster-Newton had also locked her office door.
Zwerner made it to the main office where she passed out in front of Foster’s door. Foster opened the door then quickly shut it after seeing Zwerner. Foster told the two students in her office to hide in the bathroom.
Zwerner’s attorneys told 10 On Your Side that Zwerner never heard from Parker after the shooting.
On Jan. 25, 2023, law enforcement executed two search warrants for the child’s academic file. Each student has two copies. One of the boy’s files was found in the home of Dr. LaQuiche Parrott, Director of Elementary School Leadership. She claims it was in her car.
All disciplinary records were missing from the file she turned in to investigators.
The second copy of the file, said to have been in Zwerner’s classroom, was never located.
The report called for an investigation into the missing files to see if Parrott should be charged with obstruction of justice.
The Newport News School Board released a statement following the Special Grand Jury’s report:
We thank the Special Grand Jury for their Report on the investigation of the January 6, 2023 Richneck Elementary School Shooting and for their recommendations. We have implemented a number of positive changes since this incident and will continue to do so in the future.
NNSB
Safety of students and staff remain a top priority for the School Board.