A Virginia jury awarded a first grade teacher $10 million in damages on Thursday after she was shot by a six-year-old student in 2023. While in her classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, Abby Zwerner was shot by a bullet that went through her left hand and into her chest, leaving her hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. The jury found that the school’s assistant principal, Ebony Parker, acted with gross negligence for preventing staff from searching a student after she was informed multiple times on the day of the incident that they had a firearm. Zwerner’s civil complaint had sought $40 million in damages, but her attorneys were “very happy with the outcome.” “Those choices that she made to treat Jan. 6, 2023 like any other day, even though a gun should change everything, is why we’re here,” said Zwerner’s attorney, Kevin Biniazan, about Parker during closing arguments. “I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven,” Zwerner recalled about the incident in a testimony during the trial. “But then it all got black and so I then thought I wasn’t going there.”
The post Judge Awards Huge Payout to Teacher Shot by Six-Year-Old appeared first on The Daily Beast