{"id":2159,"date":"2025-11-04T00:18:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T00:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2159"},"modified":"2025-11-04T00:18:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T00:18:58","slug":"defense-expert-testifies-ex-assistant-principal-met-standards-in-teacher-shooting-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2159","title":{"rendered":"Defense expert testifies ex-assistant principal met standards in teacher shooting case"},"content":{"rendered":"

An expert for the defense in the $40 million\u00a0lawsuit\u00a0filed by a former Virginia elementary school teacher shot by a 6-year-old student with a history of disciplinary problems testified Monday the assistant principal did not breach professional standards or act with indifference.<\/p>\n

Former Assistant Principal Ebony Parker is accused of ignoring red flags that might have averted the 2023 shooting. Dr. Amy Klinger, an expert in education administration and school safety, said it would have been difficult for anyone to foresee the incident.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the teacher, Abby Zwerner, rested their case last week, and the defense rested Monday.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0civil trial\u00a0could set a precedent for holding school officials accountable for gun violence on campus and comes ahead of Parker\u2019s criminal trial next month on eight counts of felony child neglect.<\/p>\n

School safety is a shared responsibility<\/h3>\n

Klinger testified the assistant principal\u2019s role is collaborative and school safety is a shared responsibility among all staff, not just one individual. \u201cNo one is the sole person responsible for school safety,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She explained that assessing threats requires gathering credible information from those closest to the situation and that not every concern warrants an immediate or aggressive response.<\/p>\n

Parker did not breach professional standards or act with indifference, Klinger said, and it would have been difficult for anyone to foresee the incident, especially given the rarity of a 6-year-old bringing a weapon to school.<\/p>\n

Klinger also said crisis plans provide guidance but require professional judgment and flexibility.<\/p>\n

During cross-examination, Zwerner\u2019s attorney, Kevin Biniazan, questioned whether Parker should have taken more proactive steps after being told a specific student was reported to have a gun, rather than waiting for more information.<\/p>\n

He highlighted Parker did not attempt to identify or speak directly with the students who reported the gun and pressed Klinger on whether this was sufficient effort to get \u201cgood information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biniazan emphasized Parker was aware of the possibility of a firearm on campus for about an hour and questioned whether her actions in that time were adequate.<\/p>\n

He asked Klinger to rate the likelihood of a gun being on campus at various points in the day, suggesting the risk increased as more information was received, and challenged whether Parker\u2019s response \u2014 such as not searching the student or calling a lockdown \u2014 was an \u201cunderreaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier, Dr. Leigh Hagan, a board-certified forensic and clinical psychologist also testifying for the defense, said he reviewed extensive records to assess whether proper forensic standards were followed in forming mental health opinions for the court, though he did not personally evaluate Zwerner or offer opinions on her diagnosis or liability.<\/p>\n

He testified a mental health expert\u2019s opinion is enhanced when they look at all of the information.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a responsibility \u2026 that you have the full movie of the person\u2019s life, rather than a snapshot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"Former<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Former Richneck Elementary School Assistant Principal Ebony Parker appears in court in Newport News, Virginia, on Monday. – Pool<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Parker, who resigned two weeks after the shooting, argues she is not responsible for the student harming his teacher and had no legal duty to intervene. Damages are not warranted, Parker argues, because Zwerner has moved on with her life.<\/p>\n

Zwerner\u2019s pain and suffering have been the focus of the trial so far, and Parker\u2019s defense team this week is expected to continue to press Zwerner on whether there was more she could have done between learning of the possible gun threat and when she was shot.<\/p>\n

Zwerner\u2019s lawsuit alleges Parker ignored \u201cwarnings from teachers and staff that students had seen the firearm\u201d and the student had \u201cremoved an object that was likely a firearm from his backpack before it was searched.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poor decisions led to the \u201cavoidable\u201d shooting, a grand jury report found last April.<\/p>\n

Teacher said she thought she was going to die<\/h3>\n

Zwerner on Thursday testified she thought her wounds were dire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I was dying. I thought I had died,\u201d the former first-grade teacher said as she recounted being shot in the hand and chest while sitting at a reading table in her classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News.<\/p>\n

Zwerner has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, a psychiatrist testified, and her hand will never be normal, even after six surgeries, an orthopedic surgeon said.<\/p>\n

Zwerner also has changed since the\u00a0shooting\u00a0more than two years ago, her twin sister said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s just not the person that she was,\u201d Hannah Zwerner testified last week.<\/p>\n

Parker also faces criminal charges<\/h3>\n

As school shootings\u00a0continue to plague\u00a0US campuses, this civil trial could serve as a roadmap for the upcoming criminal case against Parker, which itself could set a broader precedent.<\/p>\n

Attempts to hold school officials criminally accountable for school shootings are rare, said Darryl K. Brown, a law professor at the University of Virginia.<\/p>\n

It is also rare for civil cases to precede criminal ones, but it could be strategic in the case of Parker, who faces\u00a0eight counts\u00a0of felony child neglect in her trial next month, legal experts say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suspect that defense would want the civil trial to go forward first, because they\u2019re not going to be able to avoid it, and it gives them a lot of information about what would come in at the criminal trial,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

Already, the mother of the child who shot Zwerner has been\u00a0sentenced to two years\u00a0in prison for child neglect, the school board voted out the superintendent and the principal was reassigned to another school.<\/p>\n

The civil trial resumes Wednesday, after Election Day Tuesday.<\/p>\n

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at\u00a0CNN.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An expert for the defense in the $40 million\u00a0lawsuit\u00a0filed by a former Virginia elementary school teacher shot by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2161,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions\/2161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}