Opening statements begin in trial of ex-Virginia assistant principal
Opening statements opened Tuesday in the trial of Ebony Parker, a former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, where a 6-year-old student shot and wounded first-grade teacher Abby Zwerner in January 2023. Parker is charged with eight counts of felony child neglect related to the shooting.
Prosecutor Josh Jenkins told jurors that Parker ignored repeated warnings from multiple school employees who believed the child had a gun in his backpack before the attack. Jenkins said that, after those warnings, Parker did not move to search the student, did not remove the child from the classroom, and did not call police.
“Does she say ‘search the child’? No,” Jenkins told the jury. “Does she say ‘call the police,’ or does she call the police? No. Does she remove the child from the classroom and separate him? No.” Jenkins added, “She didn’t even get up from her desk. She didn’t leave her office. Warning after warning after warning, she did nothing.”
As prosecutors outlined their case, Jenkins said school policy at the time required crisis situations to be reported to an administrator who was required to take action. He said a school counselor even asked for permission to search the child, but Parker denied the request because searches could only be conducted by an administrator or a security officer, and the security officer was away at another school.
Jenkins also told the jury that the principal had not been told about the threat because Parker did not tell her. He said that left Parker, as a school official with authority and knowledge of the crisis, as the person with both the power to act and the information about the ongoing threat. “There was only one person in the school that day that had both the authority to act and the knowledge of the ongoing crisis, and that person, you will see, was Dr. Parker,” Jenkins said.
Parker’s attorney, Curtis Rogers, disputed the prosecution’s account of who should have acted. Rogers said teachers should have taken action if they believed a gun was present, and argued they should have at least separated the child from about 19 other students in the classroom, which he said did not occur.
“That did not occur,” Rogers said. “Each one of those individuals had the authority to move those classmates.” Rogers told the jury that prosecutors must prove Parker’s actions showed reckless disregard for human life, and he directed blame at others who he said had observed the child’s movements before the shooting.
During the proceedings, Zwerner was the first witness called. She told the jury that she had seen the student become violent in the days before the shooting, and she described events immediately preceding the attack.
Zwerner said that during recess on the school playground, the student wore an oversized jacket with both of his hands in his pockets the entire time. She said she sent a text message to a reading specialist after observing that behavior; she said the specialist had been tipped off earlier by students about the gun and reported it to Parker.
After recess, Zwerner testified that the student continued wearing the jacket in the classroom, where she said she was shot at a reading table. She testified that she spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, underwent six surgeries, and has not regained full use of her left hand. Zwerner said a bullet narrowly missed her heart and remains in her chest.
The eight counts Parker faces, prosecutors said in court, include one count for each of the bullets in the gun brought into the classroom. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison if convicted.
The case has drawn broad attention in the military shipbuilding community of Newport News and beyond, with questions about how a child so young obtained a gun that could be used in a classroom setting.
In a related civil case, a jury awarded Zwerner $10 million in November 2025, according to testimony described in the trial. Prosecutors also said the student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges.