A former teacher shot by student, 6, wins $10M jury verdict against ex-assistant principal

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — A jury in Virginia awarded $10 million Thursday to a former teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student, siding with her claims in a lawsuit that an ex-administrator ignored repeated warnings that the child had a gun.

The jury returned its decision against Ebony Parker, a former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News.

Abby Zwerner was shot in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom. She had sought $40 million against Parker in the lawsuit.

Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries and does not have the full use of her left hand. A bullet narrowly missed her heart and remains in her chest.

Zwerner did not address reporters outside the courthouse after the decision was announced. One of her attorneys, Diane Toscano, said the verdict sends a message that what happened at the school "was wrong and is not going to be tolerated, that safety has to be the first concern at school. I think it’s a great message.”

Parker was the only defendant in the lawsuit. A judge previously dismissed the district’s superintendent and the school principal as defendants.

The shooting sent shock waves through this military shipbuilding community and the country at large, with many wondering how a child so young could gain access to a gun and shoot his teacher.

The lawsuit said Parker had a duty to protect Zwerner and others from harm after being told about the gun. Zwerner’s attorneys said Parker failed to act in the hours before the shooting after several school staff members told her that the student had a gun in his backpack.

“Who would think a 6-year-old would bring a gun to school and shoot their teacher?” Toscano told the jury earlier. “It’s Dr. Parker’s job to believe that is possible. It’s her job to investigate it and get to the very bottom of it.”

Parker did not testify in the lawsuit. Her attorney, Daniel Hogan, had warned jurors about hindsight bias and “Monday morning quarterbacking” in the shooting.

““You will be able to judge for yourself whether or not this was foreseeable,” Hogan said. “That’s the heart of this case.

“The law knows that it is fundamentally unfair to judge another person’s decisions based on stuff that came up after the fact. The law requires you to examine people’s decisions at the time they make them.”

Ken Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm based in Cleveland, Ohio, said the verdict should put school leaders on notice to act when they are warned about students with guns and other threats.

“If you have information about a threat to student and staff safety, it is not just ‘see something, say something,'" Trump said in a statement Thursday. “School administrators and staff need to also know how to ‘do something.’”

The shooting occurred on the first day after the student had returned from a suspension for slamming Zwerner’s phone two days earlier.

Zwerner testified she first heard about the gun prior to class recess from a reading specialist who had been tipped off by students. The shooting occurred a few hours later. Despite her injuries, Zwerner was able to hustle her students out of the classroom. She eventually passed out in the school office.

Zwerner testified she believed that she had died that day.

“I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven,” Zwerner said. “But then it all got black. And so, I then thought I wasn’t going there. And then my next memory is I see two co-workers around me and I process that I’m hurt and they’re putting pressure on where I’m hurt.”

Zwerner no longer works for the school district and has said she has no plans to teach again. She has since become a licensed cosmetologist.

Parker faces a separate criminal trial this month on eight counts of felony child neglect. Each of the counts is punishable by up to five years in prison in the event of a conviction.

The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. Her son told authorities he got his mother’s handgun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mom’s purse.

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Raby reported from Cross Lanes, West Virginia.

Former Richneck Elementary School teacher Abby Zwerner looks back into the courtroom during her civil lawsuit trial, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, in Newport News, Va. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot via AP, Pool)

Newport News Circuit Court Judge Matthew Hoffman sidebars with attorneys during Former Richneck Elementary School teacher Abby Zwerner's civil lawsuit against the former assistant principal of the school where Zwerner was shot, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, in Newport News, Va. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot via AP, Pool)

Former Richneck Elementary School assistant principal Ebony Parker looks back into the courtroom during Abby Zwerner's lawsuit against her Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, in Newport News, Va. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot via AP, Pool)

Abby Zwerner's attorney Diane Toscano confers with her colleague Jeffrey Breit during Zwerner's lawsuit Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, in Newport News, Va. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot via AP, Pool)

Illinois’ Brad Underwood coached for 26 years before landing his first Division I head coaching job.

Now in Year 39, the well-traveled 62-year-old is finally heading to the Final Four, where the Fighting Illini meet UConn on Saturday.

He’s doing it in what he’s long referred to as his dream job. In 2013 while in that first DI head coaching job at Stephen F. Austin, he told his administrative assistant about his ambition to coach the Fighting Illini one day. And she wrote it down.

When he was named Illinois coach in 2017, she presented him with that meaningful piece of paper containing his intention to lead this team.

In the place he always wanted to be, Underwood has the Fighting Illini in the Final Four for the first time since 2005, trying to bring home a first national title.

“I’ve been fortunate to be around great mentors, great coaches,” he said. “I just bided my time, found a group that’s magical. We’re living the dream.”

Though he’s living the dream now, it came only after decades of toiling in relative obscurity.

There were four years at Dodge City Community College starting in 1988 where he was not only the coach but the team’s bus driver for road games. Then came 10 years as an assistant for Jim Kerwin at Western Illinois, where he was “not making very much money and raising three kids and literally being gone five days a week.”

The next stop was Daytona Beach Community College from 2003-06, which also was not the most glamorous job but had a nice perk.

“It was an incredible place to help raise our kids, going to the beach every weekend," he said. "And I loved coaching ball in junior college.”

After that he worked as an assistant, first for Bob Huggins followed by Frank Martin, at Kansas State from 2006-12. He followed Martin to South Carolina, where he spent one season before landing at Stephen F. Austin.

“I’ve been blessed along the way because I’ve worked for nothing but winners for head coaches and people who allowed me to grow,” Underwood said.

At Stephen F. Austin he was named Southland Conference coach of the year in each of his three seasons. The Lumberjacks won the league tournament to advance to the NCAA Tournament every year under him.

He spent one season at Oklahoma State, where he went 20-13 and led the Cowboys to March Madness before landing his coveted job in 2017.

After three seasons building the team, he turned the Fighting Illini into perennial NCAA Tournament contenders. This is their sixth straight season in the tournament and the second time in three years that they have advanced to the Sweet 16.

“It’s been maybe a different path than most, but one that I sure wouldn’t — there’s not one step of it that I would give up,” he said. “Because I’ve been beyond blessed to work for great people who helped prepare me to get to these moments.”

His success this season comes after he began prioritizing recruiting in Eastern Europe. The Illini have a roster that includes four players from Eastern Europe and Andrej Stojakovic, who was born in Greece but whose father is Serbian three-time NBA All-Star Peja Stojakovic.

The squad is led by consensus second-team All-American point guard Keaton Wagler. The freshman scored 25 points in a win over Iowa to earn South Region tournament MVP and punch the Fighting Illini’s ticket to the Final Four.

Wagler said he knew soon after meeting Underwood that Illinois was the school for him.

“He’s super competitive and that’s what I like about him,” Wagler said. “He hates to lose. I hate to lose. So, it just combined really well. Just talking to him just throughout the whole recruiting process, I knew that this was the place I wanted to be.”

Underwood got emotional as he was cutting down the net after the victory over the Hawkeyes. So many years and all those stops brought him right where he was supposed to be.

Now he’s just two wins away from bringing Illinois to heights never seen before.

“You believe in something so much that it drives me every single day to want to make it happen,” he said.

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Illinois coach Brad Underwood listens to an official during a timeout to fix a broken horn during the first half of an Elite Eight game against Iowa in the NCAA college basketball tournament Saturday, March 28, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Illinois coach Brad Underwood celebrates with players after an Elite Eight game against Iowa in the NCAA college basketball tournament Saturday, March 28, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Illinois' Brad Underwood, center, celebrates with players after an Elite Eight game against Iowa in the NCAA college basketball tournament Saturday, March 28, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Illinois coach Brad Underwood celebrates after Illinois beat Iowa in an Elite Eight game in the NCAA college basketball tournament Saturday, March 28, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)