The shooting death of a 6-year-old elementary school teacher in Newport News, Virginia, last year was preceded by a “shocking” series of lapses by the school's assistant principal at the time, Special Ground reports. . Jurors announced Wednesday.
On the same day, the vice principal refused a school counselor's request for permission to search the student, despite being told the student was in a “violent mood” and receiving multiple reports that he was in possession of a firearm. the grand jury said. In that report.
Less than 30 minutes later, the student's teacher, Abigail Zwirner, pulled out a 9mm Taurus handgun and shot her dead from less than 6 feet away just before 2 p.m. He and 15 other first-year students were in the classroom.
The bullet passed through her hand and hit her in the chest. The gun, which was loaded with seven more rounds, jammed after the first shot. The boy later said he found it in his mother's purse at his home.
While students evacuated to an adjoining classroom, Zwerner stumbled into the hallway and passed out in front of the principal's office door. she survived.
One of the gunman's friends told Zwirner's co-worker at Richneck Elementary School about the gun, saying, “I told you, I was trying to keep you safe,” the report said. That's what it means.
The grand jury report was released a day after Assistant Principal Ebony Parker was charged with child neglect in connection with the shooting. The 31-page document provides a detailed account of that day and a series of failures spanning more than a year that culminated in the teacher being seriously injured by one of her own students. Parker's attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
The charges against Parker and the grand jury report detailing her actions come as prosecutors across the country are becoming more aggressive in holding adults accountable for violence committed by children in their care. It was held in This week, Jennifer and James Crumbley were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison for manslaughter in the killings of their son's four classmates with a 9mm handgun at a Michigan high school, but a jury did not agree. Their parents never discovered it. Safe.
The Rich Neck shooter's mother, Dejah Taylor, was sentenced last year to 45 months in prison on gun-related and child abandonment charges. Her prosecutors argued that she fired her gun during an argument with her boy's father several weeks ago. A state court judge said at the sentencing hearing that Taylor “abandoned most, if not all,” of her parental responsibilities.
A special grand jury, prompted by Newport News State's Attorney Howard E. Gwynn, will decide whether anything could have prevented the shooting and whether anyone at the school should face criminal charges in connection with the shooting. I was tasked with determining whether or not.
The report is harshly critical of Parker, who resigned after the shooting. But the report also details a number of systemic failures in responding to students' serious behavioral challenges, and there may have been an attempt to cover up some of those early failures. It is claimed that there is.
The previous year, when the child was in kindergarten, the teacher strangled the student and then insisted that administrators send him to another school. The child graduated from Richneck Elementary School, but she never completed kindergarten.
When he returned the following year, a grand jury found Rich Neck Elementary School had numerous safety deficiencies. The school did not have a full-time security guard and had no record of conducting state-mandated lockdown training. The front door buzzer had been broken “several weeks” before the shooting, so two of the first sheriff's deputies responded and banged on the door for “almost a minute” before being spotted by a manager and forced inside. Ta.