Shooting probe not complete in Virginia
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A criminal investigation into staff members at a Virginia school where a 6-year-old shot his teacher could shift to why the troubled child’s disciplinary records disappeared after the violence.
A special grand jury recently concluded its probe into the shooting, which resulted in charges against a former school administrator who is accused of dismissing concerns that the boy had a gun. But prosecutors in Newport News said Thursday they’ll continue investigating, including into the missing files.
Investigators had searched for the student’s records after he shot teacher Abby Zwerner in her first grade classroom, the grand jury said in its report released this week. Every other student’s file was located, but not his.
The student had a long history of violence at Richneck Elementary, including choking other children as well as his kindergarten teacher, the report states.
“We’ll work with the school system to try to ferret out how this happened,” Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn said at a news conference. “And based on the facts of the law, if we believe somebody else needs to be charged, trust me when I tell you, they will be charged.”
LaQuiche Parrott, director of elementary school leadership, returned one file she said was in her home or car, the report states.
The grand jury said she had a “suspicious lack of memory” regarding that file.
“It is at its best a complete lack of competence as to how things were run and recorded, and at its worst a cover-up for the child’s past disciplinary record by the school administration,” the grand jury stated.
The grand jury said authorities should consider filing obstruction of justice charges against Parrott. However, Gwynn noted that the statute of limitations for the misdemeanor charge is one year. The shooting occurred in January 2023.
Meanwhile, former Richneck assistant principal Ebony Parker is facing charges of felony child neglect. The grand jury report states that she showed a “shocking” lack of response to multiple warnings the boy had a gun in the hours before he shot Zwerner.
Parker attended a court hearing Thursday morning to discuss who her attorney would be, but the matter was continued until next month. Parker did not comment to reporters and ran from cameras outside the courthouse.
A few hours later, attorneys for Zwerner called for investigations into the shooting by the U.S. Department of Education and the Virginia Department of Education in the wake of the grand jury’s report.
The report also bolsters Zwerner’s $40 million lawsuit against Newport News Public Schools.
“We’re going to have to prove every fact in our own case,” one of Zwerner’s attorneys, Kevin Biniazan, noted. But he said the grand jury report “provides resources to the truth. It provides resources to unearthing and revealing the facts and the circumstances that will lead to a just and righteous outcome.”
The criminal probe in Newport News is among a small number of recent criminal investigations in the U.S. that are signaling a shift toward greater accountability of adults when it comes to preventing school violence.