A Virginia teacher killed in the act of shooting a 6-year-old student in the hand and chest: A class action lawsuit against Richneck Elementary School

RICHMOND, Va. — A first-grade Virginia teacher who was shot and seriously wounded by her 6-year-old student filed a lawsuit Monday seeking $40 million in damages from school officials, accusing them of gross negligence for allegedly ignoring multiple warnings on the day of the shooting that the boy had a gun and was in a “violent mood.”

Abby Zwerner, a 25-year-old teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia was shot in the hand and chest on Jan. 6 as she sat at a reading table in her classroom. Since the shooting she has had four surgeries and spent two weeks in the hospital.

The shooting shook the military shipbuilding community, as many wondered how a child could get access to a gun and shoot his teacher.

The school board and several administrators are named in the lawsuit.

The boy was taken out of Richneck and given to a different school, but was allowed to return to his old school in the fall of 2022, according to the lawsuit. He was placed on a modified schedule “because he was chasing students around the playground with a belt in an effort to whip them with it,” and was cursing staff and teachers, it says. There was a requirement for one of the boy’s parents to accompany him to school.

Zwerner’s attorneys say that the boy’s mother knew he had a history of violence at school and at home, and that the defendants knew of the attack on his teacher.

“Teachers’ concerns with John Doe’s behavior (were) regularly brought to the attention of Richneck Elementary School administration, and the concerns were always dismissed,” the lawsuit states. Often after he was taken to the office, “he would return to class shortly thereafter with some type of reward, such as a piece of candy,” according to the lawsuit.

The boy’s parents did not agree for him to be put in special education classes where he would be with other students with behavioral issues, the lawsuit states.

Zwerner suffered permanent bodily injuries, physical pain, mental anguish, lost earnings and other damages, the lawsuit states. It wants $40 million in damages.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/03/1167708211/virginia-teacher-abby-zwerner-richneck-newport-news-lawsuit

A civil settlement agreement for the family of a 17-year-old woman killed in 2021 by a school safety officer in Millikan

The boy wouldn’t understand the legal system and wouldn’t be charged with a crime, according to the Newport News prosecutor. Gwynn has yet to decide if any adults will be charged.

The gun was legally purchased by the boy’s mother. An attorney for the boy’s family has said that the firearm was secured on a closet shelf and had a lock on it.

The family of an 18-year-old woman who was fatally shot by a California school safety officer in 2021 reached a $13 million settlement agreement with the Long Beach Unified School District in their civil case, family attorneys said in a news conference Tuesday.

Manuela “Mona” Rodriguez was shot by a Millikan High School safety officer on September 27, 2021, after a physical altercation involving Rodriguez and a 15-year-old girl on the street, Long Beach police previously said. Rodriguez had attempted to flee in a sedan and the school safety officer shot at the vehicle as it accelerated, striking Rodriguez, who was in the front passenger seat, police had said.

“The school district and its insurance carriers have been in negotiations on a settlement, but because we have not seen or ratified an agreement, we cannot discuss the details,” the school district said. “Settlements like these include language that there is no admission of liability on the district’s part.”

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“I don’t know how to go on, how I’m here, how to move on without my baby girl. “She was the one who meant everything to me.” “All I want is justice – justice for my baby girl.”

He was fired by the Long Beach Board of Education days after the shooting for violating the district’s use-of-force policy, which instructs its safety officers not to shoot at a fleeing person, moving vehicle or through a vehicle window unless “circumstances clearly warrant the use of a firearm as a final means of defense,” the policy states.

Michael D. Schwartz said in a statement to CNN that the decision to settle a civil law suit is rarely related to whether the prosecution can prove in court that a crime was committed by his client.

“If past history is at all instructive, the outcomes of these cases, based on the evidence presented in court, are rarely consistent with what appears before trial in the media,” Schwartz said. It is not acceptable for cases to be tried in the public eye and not in a courtroom.