A judge dismissed all criminal charges against former Richneck Elementary School assistant principal Ebony Parker on the third day of her trial, ruling that her conduct before a 6-year-old student shot his teacher in January 2023 did not meet the legal threshold for a crime under Virginia law.
Parker wept as Newport News Circuit Court Judge Rebecca Robinson announced she was dismissing all eight felony child neglect counts. "The court is of the legal opinion that this is not a crime, not under the common law of Virginia, nor under the code of Virginia," Robinson said, according to NBC News. Robinson also stated from the bench that only legal principles had guided her decision.
A first-grade boy carried a loaded handgun from his home into Richneck Elementary School in Newport News and opened fire on his teacher, Abigail Zwerner, while she was seated at a reading table with students, on Jan. 6, 2023. The injuries left Zwerner hospitalized for weeks, necessitated six surgeries, and permanently impaired function in her left hand; a bullet that came close to piercing her heart was never removed, according to ABC News.
The prosecution contended that warnings reached Parker repeatedly during a span exceeding an hour, yet she took no steps to have the student searched, alert law enforcement, or pull him out of class. Under school policy, Jenkins argued, any emergency had to be escalated to an administrator who bore responsibility for responding — and Parker, he said, never brought the matter to the principal's attention, according to NBC News.
Curtis Rogers, who represented Parker, countered that authority and responsibility to step in were not Parker's alone — Zwerner and other staff members shared them as well, according to ABC News.
Prior to the criminal proceedings, a civil jury had already returned a $10 million verdict against Parker, concluding she had been grossly negligent. After the ruling came down, attorneys for Zwerner issued a statement pointing out that Newport News had still not made good on the civil judgment against it, according to NBC News.
Deja Taylor, the boy's mother, received a 2023 sentence of two years on a state felony child neglect conviction and a separate 21-month federal term tied to weapons offenses arising from the incident, according to ABC News. The prosecution fits into a wider pattern in which prosecutors nationally have sought criminal accountability from adults who, they argue, could have anticipated and stopped violence by children under their supervision, according to The New York Times.