Ex-school administrator charged
Former assistant principal accused of child neglect in 6-year-old’s shooting of teacher
NEWPORT NEWS — A special grand jury in Newport News has charged a former school administrator with multiple counts of felony child neglect in the case of a 6-year-old who shot his teacher early last year.
Ebony J. Parker — the former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School — showed “a reckless disregard for the human life” of other students on Jan. 6, 2023, according to indictments unsealed Tuesday in Newport News Circuit Court. Parker, 39, of Newport News, was charged with eight counts of felony child neglect, each punishable by up to five years in prison.
The charges come about 15 months after the firstgrader shot his teacher, Abby Zwerner, in the Richneck
classroom. Just before 2 p.m. that day — as Zwerner sat at a reading table and the boy at his desk — he suddenly pulled a gun out of his front hoodie pocket, pointed at his teacher, and fired a single round. The bullet went through the teacher’s left hand, striking her in the upper chest.
Zwerner has filed a $40 million lawsuit contending Parker ignored several stark warnings — including from other teachers at Richneck — that the boy had a gun.
The Newport News special grand jury asserts Parker failed to take action. The eight indictments all read identically, mirroring language from Virginia’s child neglect statute.
“Being a person responsible for the care of students under the age of 18 at Richneck Elementary School,” the eight indictments each say, Parker committed “a willful act or omission in the care of such students” that was “so gross, wanton, and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life.”
The special grand jury issued the indictments March 11 but they were unsealed by a court order Tuesday. A warrant was issued for Parker’s arrest Tuesday morning, but she
had not been arrested by Tuesday afternoon.
The Newport News prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the indictments but is expected to release a report from the special grand jury on Wednesday afternoon.
Parker had worked for the Newport News school division since 2008 and had been Richneck’s assistant principal for about two years at the time of the shooting. She resigned a few weeks afterward. She has not responded to multiple attempts to reach her over the past year.
Her attorney in the criminal case, Curtis Rogers, could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday. According to court records, prosecutors are recommending that Parker could be released if she posts a $4,000 secured bond.
The 6-year-old’s mother, Deja Nicole Taylor, 26, was charged with felony child neglect after the boy took her gun to school that morning.
She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years behind bars. She also has been sentenced in federal court to 21 months for lying on a gun purchasing form about her marijuana usage and having both a gun and the drug at the same time.
Last May, Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn asked for a special grand jury to probe whether any “actions or omissions” by school system employees also helped lead to the shooting.
It’s unclear if the grand jury is expected to charge anyone else.
It also wasn’t immediately clear how the grand jury determined that Parker should face eight counts of child neglect. There were about 18 students in Zwerner’s classroom that day, police said at a news conference shortly after the shooting, and many more in the school building.
Parker is one of the defendants in Zwerner’s lawsuit against Newport News Public Schools.
According to the teacher’s suit, Zwerner approached Parker after 11:15 a.m. to say that the 6-year-old was “in a violent mood” and “threatened to beat up a kindergartner during lunchtime.”
But Parker “had no response … refusing even to look up at (Zwerner) when she expressed her concerns,” the complaint asserts.
Later that morning, the lawsuit says, other students reported that the boy had a gun. After recess began at 12:30 p.m., the lawsuit contends, Zwerner told the reading specialist and another teacher that she had seen the 6-year-old taking something out of his backpack, and saw him going several times behind a rock climbing wall at recess.
The reading specialist searched the boy’s backpack and didn’t find a firearm. But when she went to Parker’s office to voice concern, the complaint says, the administrator dismissed the concern, saying the boy’s pockets were “too small” to carry a firearm.
When recess ended after 1 p.m., the complaint says, another student admitted to a teacher that the 6-yearold showed him the gun during recess — and threatened to harm him if he told anyone. That teacher called the school office, and told a Richneck music teacher what the other student said. But the complaint says Parker told the music teacher the boy’s bag “had already been searched.”
Then — when a school guidance counselor sought permission to search the boy — Parker again denied the request, saying the boy’s mother would soon be at the school to pick him up.
After the indictments became public on Tuesday, Zwerner’s legal team — attorneys Diane Toscano, Kevin Biniazan and Jeffrey Breit — released a statement calling the school system negligent in its actions.
“These charges are very serious and underscore the failure of the school district to act to prevent the tragic shooting of Abby Zwerner,” they said. “The school board continues to deny their responsibility to Abby, and this indictment is just another brick in the wall of mounting failures and gross negligence in their case.”
Emily Mapp Brannon, a Norfolk attorney who is representing the families of seven Richneck students in lawsuits against the school division, said the families “may find comfort in knowing that the administration is being held accountable.”
“The suffering of the students of Richneck has been ignored,” Brannon said. “These charges suggest that there is sufficient evidence that the students of Richneck were placed in peril by the very hands entrusted to protect them … I remain optimistic that our criminal justice system will provide answers to the Richneck community.”
Michelle Price, a spokeswoman for the Newport News Public Schools, declined to comment late Tuesday afternoon.
Parker began with Newport News Public Schools in 2008, according to the school division. She started as a teacher at Achievable Dream Academy in Newport News in 2008 and began teaching at McIntosh Elementary School in 2017.
She became assistant principal at Newsome Park Elementary School in 2018, moving to Richneck in March 2021.