A 6-year-old boy who shot and wounded a teacher in Southeast Virginia last year had previously choked a different teacher and should have been unenrolled from the school, but lapses by administrators allowed him back on campus, according to a special grand jury report released Thursday.
The 11-member panel also suggested a criminal probe of a high-ranking member of the Newport News School District for obstructing the investigation into the high-profile shooting, after key pieces of evidence — the boy’s disciplinary files — went missing.
The special grand jury reserved its harshest judgments for Richneck’s former assistant principal, Ebony Parker, who it found was warned three times on the day of the shooting that the boy had a weapon but failed to do anything.
“Dr. Parker’s lack of response and initiative given the seriousness of the information she had received on Jan. 6, 2023 is shocking,” the panel wrote in its 24-page report.
The special grand jury was empaneled by Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard E. Gwynn to examine whether any security lapses that contributed to the shooting last year that left Zwerner grievously wounded, captured national attention and led to the ouster of the school superintendent.
The report was made public one day after the special grand jury’s indictment against Parker was unsealed. Parker is facing eight counts of child abuse, possibly the first time an administrator has been charged in the handling of a school shooting, experts said.
Gwynn’s office has declined to comment on what prompted the charges, but a $40 million lawsuit brought by Zwerner claims Parker ignored several warnings by teachers and other staff that the boy had a gun on the day of the shooting.
Parker’s attorney has not responded to requests for comment, but has denied Zwerner’s allegations in a response to her lawsuit filed in court. Parker is scheduled to appear in Newport News Circuit Court on Thursday morning. She resigned from Richneck after the shooting.
The incident began when the 6-year-old took his mother’s gun from her purse on the top of her dresser and brought it to school in his backpack on Jan. 6, 2023.
Zwerner’s lawsuit claims she had warned Parker that day that the boy was in a “violent mood” and threatened to beat up a kindergartner, but that Parker did nothing. Zwerner claims it was one of several moments that Parker might have intervened to prevent the shooting.
Later that day, two students told a reading specialist that the boy had said he had a gun, according to the lawsuit. The reading specialist questioned the boy, but he denied having a gun and wouldn’t let the teacher search his backpack.
During the recess that followed, Zwerner told the reading specialist she thought she saw the boy pull something from his backpack and put it in his pocket, according to the lawsuit. The reading specialist searched the boy’s backpack but did not find the weapon. The reading specialist then told Parker that students had relayed to her that the boy had a gun.
Zwerner’s lawsuit claims a student told another teacher that the boy had shown the classmate a gun on the playground at recess. The teacher also got the information to Parker through an intermediary.
Shortly before the shooting, a guidance counselor asked Parker to search the boy for a gun, but she denied his request, according to Zwerner’s lawsuit. The boy pulled out the gun and fired a single shot at her, striking her hand and chest.
Zwerner was taken to the hospital and a teacher restrained the boy.
Deja Taylor, the boy’s mother, was convicted of firearms violations and child neglect in federal and state courts after the shooting. Taylor admitted to lying about her marijuana use on her background check to purchase the gun and failing to keep the weapon from her son. She is currently serving out prison terms.
Gwynn empaneled the special grand jury in April 2023, asking it to probe “any actions or omissions by current or former employees of the Newport News School System which may have contributed to this shooting.”
The panel began taking testimony in September. It heard from 19 witnesses, amassed hundreds of pages of documents obtained videos to compile its report. Under Virginia law, special grand juries have broad powers to investigate.
