Accusing school administrators of gross negligence for failing to heed warning indications, a Virginia school teacher who was shot by her six-year-old pupil filed a $40 million (£32 million) lawsuit against them.
The Monday complaint claims the defendants were aware the boy “had a history of random violence.”
Abigail “Abby” Zwerner, 25, was wounded in the hand and upper chest on January 6 and required two weeks of hospitalization.
The school teacher has had four operations.
At Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, a community of roughly 180,000 people northwest of Virginia Beach, the child carried the gun in his bag.
Before asking for assistance for herself after being shot by the unnamed kid, Ms. Zwerner brought her other pupils to safety.
After the event, police chief Steve Drew remarked, “She is a trooper, she is a hero.”
Investigators claim that the boy stole his mother’s lawfully acquired gun.
Since then, the board has decided to put metal detectors in every district school, including Richneck, which has 550 students.
Philip Lewis posted a tweet on his official Twitter account and wrote $40 million lawsuit:
The Virginia teacher who was shot by her 6-year-old student has filed a lawsuit seeking $40 million in damages from school officials, accusing them of gross negligence for allegedly ignoring multiple warnings https://t.co/hkEagdBpA1
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) April 3, 2023
Kindergarten Student Allegedly Attacks Teacher
The youngster has not been charged, nor has anybody else; the school board sacked the superintendent, and the assistant principal resigned.
According to the complaint, the same youngster choked and strangled his kindergarten teacher the previous year.
The child allegedly yelled at teachers and pursued other pupils with a belt to lash them.
The child allegedly took the teacher’s cell phone and shattered it on the ground two days before opening fire on Ms. Zwerner as she read in class at a table. He had been suspended for a day as punishment for this.
According to his family, the youngster has an “acute handicap” and seldom ever attends school without at least one of his parents.
The lawsuit reads: “All Defendants knew that John Doe attacked students and teachers alike, and his motivation to injure was directed toward anyone in his path, both in and out of school, and was not limited to teachers while at the school.”
According to the complaint, Ms. Zwerner is requesting compensatory damages for bodily harm that will last a lifetime, physical suffering, mental agony, lost wages, and other damages.
Emails for comments from the Newport News school board were not immediately answered.
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