Just three months after a Viggina teacher, Abigail Zwerner, was shot by a six year old student, she is filing a $40 million lawsuit against the school after not believing her warnings. 

The shooting took place at Richneck Elementary School, January 6, 2023. According to Erik Ortiz of NBC News, “Newport News stunned the country as police announced the child’s actions were intentional. The student shot her with a 9 mm handgun while she sat at a reading table in their first-grade classroom, according to officials.” 

The Newport News praised the defeat for escorting her class of 20 students to safety after the shooting had taken place and being wounded in her left hand and chest. Zwerner’s lawyers addressed on NBC’s “TODAY” show, Monday April 3, 2023, the school board knew about three complaints and warnings by other students of the boy believed to have a gun after witnessing it in his possession. 

According to NBC News, “Lawyer Jeffrey Breit disagreed with the idea that Zwerner’s negligence suit should be a workers’ compensation claim under Virginia law since theoretically, workers can’t sue their own employers.” He then began say the shooting was an exception only because, “no 6-year-old student is going to be a risk of shooting their teacher. It’s not part of their job. It’s not a night 7-Eleven worker.”

Following the lawsuit, new details are mentioned about the boy, identified as John Doe, who has an alleged pattern of behavior issues. During the 2021-2022 school year, the student allegedly strangled and choked a teacher, which he was then removed for the remainder of that school year. Before that, the same year he was believed to have pulled up a female students dress who had fallen off the playground and “began to touch the child inappropriately until reprimanded by a teacher.” The boy was transferred out of the school and not allowed to return for the 2022-23 school year.