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On Friday morning, January 6, 2023, the hallways of Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia looked like any other school day. Young students were filing into their classrooms, backpacks were hung in their cubbies & a classroom of first graders were settling into their desks to learn how to read, write & count.
For first grade teacher, 25-year-old Abby Zwerner, it was supposed to be just another ordinary Friday. She was teaching her classroom of fifteen 6 & 7-year-olds, but by that afternoon, she was rushed to the hospital after one of her students shot her. When the bullet passed through her hand, it entered her chest, narrowly missing her heart.
That day hadn’t started without concern though & despite the fact that school administrators had been notified by three different staff members on four occasions that the boy, referred to as JT, may have a gun, no action was taken.
At the time of this case in 2023, Briana Foster was Richneck Elementary’s principal while Dr. Ebony Parker was the assistant principal. There was no consistent full-time Security Resource Officer (SRO) on staff & instead, one was being shared between two schools.
When the fourth report came in that day & a staff member asked for permission to search JT since other students said that he had a gun, Dr. Parker told them to hold off because his mom would be picking him up soon.
Only one hour later, Abby nearly lost her life & the children at school that day were left with emotional scars that will likely stay with them for the rest of their lives.
Throughout JT’s time in kindergarten during the 2021-2022 school year, he was often very disruptive & violent. When a counselor was forced to step in to remove him from the classroom after he became aggressive with his classmates, he would occasionally hit or punch the counselor.
During one incident, he also kicked & spit on the assistant teacher. However, no action was taken when these outbursts were reported to administration. Despite being as young as 5-years-old, JT bragged that he had access to the marijuana in his mom’s purse, saying that he was able to get high. This statement prompted a report to Child Protective Services.
In September 2021, when his kindergarten class was having breakfast together, JT left to dump his breakfast in the hallway & didn’t come back. The teacher, Ms. White, found him with the security guard & after she took his hand to guide him back to class, he aggressively twisted & pulled down on the security guard’s wrist.
After he was brought back to the classroom, Ms. White sat in a small chair, teaching her lesson when JT walked up behind her & began choking her. He pulled so violently on her neck that she was unable to breathe until the assistant teacher ran over to pull him away.
Ms. White was shocked & disgusted that after only an hour, JT was brought right back into her classroom. She was told that there was no administrator available to deal with the situation. After she filled out an incident report & spoke with Principal Goodman & Assistant Principal Parker, while Dr. Parker blatantly ignored her, Dr. Goodman told her to prioritize.
No behavioral plans were put into effect & instead, JT was sent back to preschool at a different school. However, the very next day, Ms. White was shocked when JT showed up as usual. She immediately went down to the office & told Dr. Goodman & Dr. Parker that if he was to remain in the class, she refused to be his teacher. This was when he was sent to a different school.
JT, who had a known diagnosis of ADHD, shouldn’t have been allowed to enter first grade since he’d only attended two months of kindergarten & two months of pre-K. When this was brought to the administration’s attention by the teachers who were reviewing files for incoming records, they were told that JT had gone to school in Chicago. However, this information was not verified & no further paperwork was provided.
By the fall of 2022, JT was back at Richneck Elementary School despite the substantial documentation of his previous behavioral issues. He was enrolled as one of 23 students in Abby Zwerner’s first grade class. Because he hadn’t completed pre-K or kindergarten, he wasn’t at the same reading level as his peers.
Unsurprisingly, his behavioral issues continued & he was known to chase kids around the playground in an attempt to whip them with a belt. He used profanities toward the staff & even choked another student.
In an attempt to correct these issues, he was placed on a modified schedule, ending his school day earlier than the rest of the students. He was also given additional time to complete his tasks & spent 1:1 time with Ms. Kovac, the reading specialist, to bring him up to the same reading level as his classmates.
He was started on ADHD medication & either his mother or father had been required to be present in the classroom with him. However, despite the fact that they were spending the day among the class of kindergartners, no background check had been run on either parent. JT’s mother was a habitual drug user while his father had a publicly documented criminal record. The parents of the other classmates were never notified that these parents were sitting with their children.
At no point was alternative school placement or an Emotionally Disturbed (ED) classroom offered to JT that would have no doubt been better equipped to address his behavioral issues.
After a follow up meeting was held on December 13, 2022, JT’s classroom hours would be extended from 11 am to 2:30 pm & a parent would no longer be required to sit with him following the holiday break, starting on January 3, 2023.
The week of the shooting was the first week his parents were no longer required to be with him.
According to JT’s great grandfather, Calvin Taylor, after he started taking his prescribed medication for ADHD, he began meeting his academic goals. He also said that his behavior within the classroom had improved, elaborating that he was more attentive & tried to follow along & do the coursework. However, he also admitted that in fairness to the other children in his class, sometimes it was too much for him.
On the day of the shooting, Calvin said that nothing seemed off with his grandson’s behavior & he had seemed happy that morning when he left for school. The boy’s mother, 25-year-old Deja Taylor, had legally purchased a gun & said that the last time she had seen it, it was locked. No one could explain how the boy got his hands on the gun, but Deja admits that she was suffering from postpartum depression after a succession of miscarriages & had been hospitalized for a week.
However, when she filled out the firearm permit application months before the shooting, she denied being an unlawful user of marijuana or other controlled substances.
On the second day back from the winter break, one day after the new plan was implemented, JT became defiant during recess. Once back in the classroom, he refused to join Abby’s reading group & continuously spoke back to her. During reading time when the class broke into smaller groups, JT grabbed Abby’s phone from the table, held it up high while staring her in the face & slammed it to the ground. This caused the phone’s case to fly off & the screen to crack.
According to Deja Taylor, her son had gotten upset because Abby had asked him to sit down when he was in the process of asking her a question. She claimed that the breaking of her phone was an accident as after he threw his arms up in frustration, inadvertently knocking it out of her hand, shattering only her screen protector, something she offered to pay to fix.
After the outburst, JT told Abby, I’m never coming back to your room again, you bitch.
He was suspended the following day, Thursday, January 5 & returned to Abby’s class on Friday, January 6, 2023.
When Abby took JT to lunch from 11:15-11:45 am that day, he was immediately aggressive, threatening to beat up a kindergartener. He also stared down a security officer & moved toward her as if he was going to pounce.
When she went to Dr. Parker’s office to report this behavior, she was working on her computer & didn’t look up or acknowledge Abby’s presence.
As Abby turned to walk away, Dr. Parker spoke instead to Ms. Kovac, saying, Tell her that she can call his mom at any time & she can pick him up early.
When Ms. Kovac walked into the hallway, two students ran up to her, saying that JT had a gun in his bag. When she went into Abby’s classroom, she saw JT sitting at his desk with his backpack next to him. When she asked him if he had a gun, he said no. When she asked if she could search his backpack, he also said no.
During the 45 minute lesson, she stayed next to him, monitoring his behavior, but his backpack wasn’t searched at the time.
Before going out to recess, JT asked if he could change his shoes. In the meantime, Ms. Kovac went to the office to update Dr. Parker on the situation, explaining that he’d refused to let her search his backpack. Normally JT was careless with his backpack, throwing it around, but today, he hadn’t done that. This made Ms. Kovac feel as if something was going on. However, she felt that Dr. Parker seemed unconcerned & she was told to oversee state testing.
Sometime between 12:20-12:30 pm, Abby was lining her students up for recess when she saw JT put on an oversized zip-up jacket with a hood. He was rummaging through his backpack & putting his hands in his pockets.
Feeling concerned, she texted Ms. Kovac about it so she searched JT’s backpack, but there was no gun inside.
Ms. Kovak went back to Dr. Parker’s office to tell her about their concern that JT might have a gun in his pocket, but she dismissed these concerns saying that he has little pockets. She clarified that she was referring to his jacket pocket, but once again, no action was taken. Principal Foster had been in & out of meetings all day & she was not notified of any of these concerns.
Meanwhile, JT remained on the playground at recess with 30+ other small children. Ms. West noticed that he kept running behind a rock structure with another student where the teachers were unable to see what he was doing.
After recess, Ms. West asked the other boy what had been going on behind the wall. She could see that he was visibly trembling & terrified as he told her that JT was going to hurt him if he said anything. After she encouraged him to tell her, he said that JT had a gun & he’d shown him the bullets.
Ms. West called the receptionist desk, relaying what this student had just told her & Dr. Parker responded that his backpack had already been searched.
Ms. West had the counselor, Rolonzo Rawles, come to her class to speak with the boy who had been shown the bullets. The boy told him about the weapon as well as his threats of harming him if he told anyone.
At 1:40 pm, Mr. Rawles, being the third person & the fourth time this message had been relayed, went back to Dr. Parker to communicate that at the very least, JT had ammunition on him, but he’d told the other student that he had a gun. He asked Dr. Parker if he could search JT & although she had the right to do so according to school policy, she said no. She told him to hold off, explaining that his mom would be coming to pick him up soon.
Because of this, nothing was done & JT remained in Abby’s class. Mr. Rawles went to her classroom to explain that he’d been denied authorization to search him. At this time, JT was sitting at his desk, staring off into space.
Abby was left alone in her classroom with 16 first-grade students, one of which was JT, who had been reported by three different students over the course of two hours to have a gun.
At 1:58 pm, while Abby sat at a reading table, she saw JT turn his whole body in her direction. He removed his hand from his pocket for the first time since before recess & this was when she saw that he was holding a gun. He pointed it directly at her as he stood less than six feet away, he pulled the trigger & fired the gun.
As he fired, Abby immediately raised her left hand in defense & the bullet went through her hand & entered her chest. She looked down to see a pool of blood spreading around her feet while JT continued to stare at her as he tried to fire a second round. Because of his lack of strength on the first shot, the gun jammed. It had a full magazine with seven additional bullets that were ready to fire had it not jammed.
As the shot rang out, all of the students ran from the class over to Ms. West’s room. With 45 students now in her classroom, she went into lockdown procedure.
Despite having just been shot, Abby’s focus was solely on the safety of her students, making sure they were ushered to safety. In the meantime, after someone had rushed into the office yelling, Someone’s been shot! Dr. Parker as well as Principal Foster. went into their offices, closed their doors & waited for the police to arrive, leaving a young student terrified & crying in the office from the commotion. The receptionist, confused by the lack of direction & information, found her composure as she dialed 911 & called lockdown over the PA system.
Abby made it to the office, collapsing in front of Principal Foster’s door. After she opened the door & saw Abby lying on the floor, she closed the door again. Meanwhile a student’s grandmother, who just so happened to be in the office at the time, jumped into action & applied pressure to the bullet wound until paramedics arrived.
Police arrived within three minutes of the call & as they rushed toward the doors of the school at 2:05 pm, they had guns drawn, ready to intervene. However, since the door’s buzzer system was broken, they were unable to get inside. After a full minute of waiting & banging on the doors, a custodian saw them & let them in.
After Ms. Kovac heard the gunshot from Abby’s classroom, she ran inside & saw JT just standing there. He turned to her & said, F*ck you, I shot my teacher. Seeing the gun on the ground, she wrapped her body around JT, holding him back from the weapon until officers arrived.
As officers reached the classroom, they came upon JT & Ms. Kovac. As they made sure she was okay & the weapon was secure, they saw JT punch her in the face. He was immediately removed from the building by law enforcement & his parents were interviewed. He admitted that he’d taken the gun from his mom’s purse, the same place he’d gotten her marijuana from.
Rather than being contacted by school officials, students’ parents found out about the shooting from the news, group chats, or social media & began arriving to Richneck shortly after 2 pm. Within a few hours, almost all of the students had been reunited with their parents.
The school was closed for thirty days & when they re-opened, several changes were put into effect, including students being required to utilize clear backpacks, working metal detectors, security answering the front door & eventually hiring two full-time SROs.
After the shooting, a temporary detention order was obtained & JT was sent to receive treatment at a medical facility.
When the bullet passed through Abby’s hand, it entered her chest, puncturing her lung. At that moment she was sure that she was either dying or had already died. She says she will never forget the look on JT’s face as he lifted the gun & pointed it directly at her.
Doctors later determined that Abby’s injuries were life-threatening as the bullet narrowly missed her heart. Since it’s too dangerous to remove, the bullet will remain lodged in her chest until the day she dies, inches from her spine & her vital organs.
According to her orthopedic trauma surgeon, Abby had suffered a devastating hand injury with a significant amount of bone injuries & fractures as well as a number of associated soft-tissue injuries. Even after undergoing six surgeries in the two weeks she spent recovering in the hospital, her hand will never again be normal.
Because of this injury, Abby has been unable to do all of the things she previously did without thinking, such as opening a bottle of water or a bag of chips.
On top of her physical injuries, she found herself struggling mentally in the aftermath of the shooting. According to psychiatrist Dr. Clarence Watson, she is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) & has lost her ability to feel safe. This is something she never experienced before, even during times when she felt anxious or depressed.
She found herself becoming socially withdrawn, even around people she loves & trusts, overcome with a feeling of a distance & numbness. She’s pulled away from friends & avoided being out in public, feeling fearful in places she never felt fear before.
During an outing to see Hamilton, she felt completely overwhelmed & found herself in tears during the scene that featured a duel with guns. When her mom asked her what she wanted to do, she knew that there wasn’t anywhere that she felt safe except for at home.
Meanwhile, parents & grandparents of the Richneck students could not understand why nothing had been done despite the multiple warnings that JT had a gun in his possession that day. The child who had been shown the bullets & warned staff, is in therapy, as he struggles with guilt, believing it was somehow his fault. Despite the fact that his mom tried to transfer him to another school on multiple occasions, each time she was denied. It wasn’t until she hired a lawyer when the transfer was approved.
When authorities searched JT’s records after obtaining a search warrant, they found that some of his violent incidents were missing, including the time he choked Ms. White in kindergarten.
Under Virginia law, a child under 7-years-old is presumed not to have the intent to carry out an illegal act. However, while he cannot, the parents can. After being interviewed by police, JT told them he climbed onto a drawer in his mother’s bedroom, reached into her purse that was sitting on the dresser & took the gun out. He then put it in his backpack & took it to school. He went on to say that he took it because he needed to shoot his teacher.
Deja Taylor, the boy’s mother, who has issues with substance abuse, went on to say that after she purchased the gun, she kept it on the top shelf of her bedroom closet & secured it with a trigger lock. However, when her home was searched, authorities found no trigger lock & no key to a trigger lock.
According to Virginia law, anyone is prohibited from recklessly leaving a loaded gun, unsecured firearm in such a way that may endanger a child under 14-years-old.
In the months after the shooting, Taylor was charged with a felony count of child neglect & one misdemeanor count of recklessly storing a firearm. After pleading guilty to felony child neglect in August, she was sentenced to two years in prison in September 2023. This came after her attorney recommended a six-month sentence & went on to describe her sentence as excessive & harsh.
Her attorney argued that the ultimate responsibility for the shooting was on school officials because they allowed the boy to advance to first grade despite only completing 2 months of kindergarten.
In addition to the two year sentence, she was also sentenced to 21 months for two federal felony charges, the unlawful use of a controlled substance while possessing a firearm & making a false statement while purchasing the firearm.
Abby had been at Taylor’s trial where she was able to recount the shooting & her long-road to recovery during the same emotional victim statement she previously read at Taylor’s federal sentencing.
During an interview with ABC News, Taylor has gone on to say that she is willing to take responsibility for the incident & says that her son’s actions can be linked to his ADHD diagnosis, saying, I am, as a parent, obviously willing to take responsibility for him because he can’t take responsibility for himself.
Taylor went on to describe her son as a great kid who is very energetic due to his condition. She went on to say, He’s off the wall. Doesn’t sit still, ever. She claimed that he really liked Abby as his teacher, but felt as if he was being ignored during the week of the shooting, referencing the time when Abby asked him to sit down when he was in the process of asking her a question that ended in her phone cracking.
Taylor said she felt regret that Abby got hurt, describing her as a really bright person who she was forming a relationship with after spending so much time in her son’s classroom. In the aftermath of the shooting, JT’s family released a statement saying, Our heart goes out to our son’s teacher & we pray for her healing in the aftermath of such an unimaginable tragedy as she selflessly served our son & the children in the school. She has worked diligently & compassionately to support our family as we sought the best education & learning environment for our son. We thank her for her courage & sacrifice.
JT remains in Calvin Taylor’s custody, who indicated that he is attending school elsewhere & getting therapy. He worries for his future living in Newport News, believing that the constant negativity from the community isn’t allowing this to boil over.
In April 2023, Abby filed a $40 million lawsuit against ex-assistant principal Ebony Parker, who resigned two weeks after the shooting, accusing her of failing to act despite multiple people approaching her regarding concerns that the boy had brought a gun to school with him that day.
In her lawsuit, Abby described the boy as violent, claiming that he had a history of random violence & was known to attack teachers & students alike.
Lawyers from the school board filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that the injuries she sustained were directly related to her job & were therefore covered under the state’s worker’s compensation law for which she was approved to receive benefits, but turned down. However, her lawyers argued that a first grade teacher would never anticipate getting shot & it was not a risk of her actual job.
The school board went on to say, The actual risk of employment in this scenario is that of a teacher being injured at the hands of a student which, unfortunately, is a fairly common occurrence & one that is increasing in frequency this day & age.
Abby no longer works for the school district & has no plans to teach again.
During the civil trial, defense attorneys cross-examined Abby, undermining her claims that the shooting has limited her willingness to go out in public. They presented evidence that she had been emotionally ready to attend various concerts, including Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
They also questioned the extent of her injuries, asking her how she had managed to complete cosmetology school & workout at the gym as she had been. Abby indicated that although she was proud of herself for graduating from cosmetology school, she was often in pain & had been unable to get a job as she cannot work until her hand heals from her latest surgery. Her surgeon has cleared her to do light workouts & she did her best when lifting weights, but she remains unable to make a tight fist & her left hand has less than half its normal grip strength.
Defense attorneys considered the case as one of hindsight bias & went on to say that no one could have anticipated that a 6-year-old first grade student would have brought a gun to an elementary school. They also questioned if there was more that Abby herself could have done on the Friday she was shot. When another staffer told her that the boy potentially had a gun, Abby hadn’t informed Parker since she knew that her colleague was doing so.
On the other hand, Abby’s lawyer argued that there were clear school guidelines that called for Parker to take action after she was informed of a possible threat, saying, That means you can’t stick your head in the sand & then come into court & say, ‘I didn’t have the information’ when it was your job to find it.
After six hours of deliberations over the course of two days, the panel of three men & four women sided with Abby & awarded her a lesser amount of $10 million in damages, plus interest.
In the meantime, the criminal trial for Ebony Parker has been moved to May 2026 after it was originally scheduled to start in November 2025.
The fact that a first grade student, a 6-year-old, brought a gun to school & fired it at his teacher in & of itself is shocking enough. But the fact that so many warnings were blatantly ignored, made this case that much more outrageous.
After Abby had been shot, she ignored her injuries & immediately tended to the safety of her students, ushering them to safety. Thankfully she survived, but that doesn’t mean that her life goes right back to the way it had been before that traumatic moment when her student raised a gun & pointed it in her direction. Beyond the physical injuries she still struggles to overcome, she’s left with emotional scars that may last a lifetime.
References:
- Special Grand Jury Report on the Investigation of the January 6, 2023 Richneck Elementary School Shooting
- ABC 30 Action News: Mother of 6-year-old who shot Virginia teacher says son has ADHD
- ABC News: Teacher shot by 6-year-old says school was warned 4 times, announces lawsuit
- ABC News: Closing arguments delivered in civil trial for teacher shot by 6-year-old student
- CNN: Mother of 6-year-old who shot his teacher sentenced to 2 years in prison for child neglect
- CNN: Teacher shot by a 6-year-old student thought she was ‘on my way to heaven.’ What we learned from Abby Zwerner’s testimony
- The New York Times: Teacher shot by 6-year-old will ‘never forget’ the look on his face
- BBC: ‘I thought I was dying’ – teacher shot by 6-year-old student testifies against school administrator
- NBC News: Abigail Zwerner wins $10 million in lawsuit over being shot by 6-year-old in Virginia school
- NBC News: School board responds to lawsuit by Virginia teacher shot by 6-year-old student
- NBC 4: Records: 6-year-old said ‘I shot that b– dead’ after shooting Virginia teacher
- WTKR 3: Criminal trial for Ebony Parker moved to May following lawsuit loss
- AP: Teacher who was shot by 6-year-old student at school testifies she thought she had died
- Capital B: A child shot his teacher & now a former assistant principal could face prison
- Carrier Management: Judge rules workers comp doesn’t apply in case involving teacher shot by 6-year-old
- Medium: Two teachers, two students, two outcomes: Colleen Ritzer & Abby Zwerner
