Shooting of Virginia teacher by 6-year-old was an ‘avoidable event,’ special grand jury report says
CNN
The 2023 shooting at a Virginia elementary school in which a 6-year-old student shot his teacher was an “avoidable situation,” a special grand jury said in a new report, citing “poor decisions” in the lead-up to the shooting.
The 2023 shooting at a Virginia elementary school in which a 6-year-old student shot his teacher was an “avoidable situation,” a special grand jury said in a newly released report, citing “poor decisions” in the lead-up to the shooting. The 11-member panel investigating the January 6, 2023, shooting at Richneck Elementary school in Newport News also found a “shocking” lack of response by the former assistant principal despite several warnings about the child, the report says. The report, dated March 11 but publicly released Wednesday, highlights a series of security failures and “many behavioral problems” involving the child before the shooting that wounded first-grade teacher Abigail Zwerner. The school’s former assistant principal, Ebony Parker, received four reports on the day of the shooting about the student having a firearm and “neglected to take any action upon receiving” the reports “of a potentially dangerous threat,” the special grand jury report said. Parker and other administrators were also “responsible for making poor decisions regarding the child” prior to the day of the shooting and dismissed “his teachers concerns,” the report said. “Despite the fact that the child … had enough documented substantial behavioral problems known by Dr. Parker to have him physically removed from the school the year prior, the child was placed in Ms. Zwerner’s first grade class for a total of 23 students enrolled.”
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