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. She spent nearly two weeks in the hospital and has had four surgeries since the shooting, reports the AP.
The lawsuit names the Newport News School Board and several school district officials, including former Superintendent George Parker III, as defendants. The school officials did not respond to emails seeking comment. In the lawsuit, Zwerner's attorneys say the defendants knew the boy “had a history of random violence” at school and at home, including an episode the year before when he “strangled and choked” his kindergarten teacher. "All Defendants knew that John Doe attacked students and teachers alike, and his motivation to injure was directed toward anyone in his path, both in and out of school,” the lawsuit states.
School officials sent him to another school for the remainder of the year, but allowed him to return to Richneck for first grade in fall 2022, the lawsuit states. 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. Under the modified schedule, one of the boy's parents was required to accompany him. “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.
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