Students return to Richneck Elementary in Newport News, Virginia, on Monday, Jan. 30, 2023, for the first time since a 6-year-old shot teacher Abby Zwerner three weeks prior. (Billy Schuerman/The Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Disturbing details have emerged over the six-year-old Virginia boy accused of shooting his first-grade teacher in the middle of a class lesson, including choking another teacher “until she couldn’t breathe,” per reports.
The child was said to have constantly cursed at staff and also even tried to whip fellow students with his belt, according to a legal notice filed by an attorney for the wounded 25-year-old teacher Abby Zwerner, the Associated Press reports.
Students have since returned to Richneck Elementary in Newport News, as of Jan. 30, 2023, for the first time since the still-unnamed 6-year-old shot teacher Zwerner three weeks prior on Jan. 6.
The incidents were revealed in a notice sent to the Newport News school district by Diane Toscano, Zwerner’s attorney, who will be informing the district that Zwerner intends to sue.
The notice of claim details the child’s long history of behavioral problems and disturbing situations be had with teachers and fellow students, however nothing appears to have been done in the days leading up to the violent crime.
Just two days before the shooting, the boy reportedly “slammed” the teacher’s cellphone and broke it, the claim notice alleges.
For that infraction, he was given a one-day suspension. However, when he returned to Zwerner’s class the next day, he pulled a 9mm handgun out of his pocket and shot her while she sat at a reading table, the notice says.
One parent, Sebastian Gonzalez-Hernandez, says Zwerner “screamed at the kids to run away.”
Zwerner remains in critical condition at a nearby hospital. No other injuries were reported, according to the AP.
“It is a miracle that more people were not harmed,” Toscano wrote in her notice. “The shooter spent his entire recess with a gun in his pocket, a gun that was loaded and ready to fire … while lots of first-grade students played.”
A detailed timeline describes how Zwerner, along with three other teachers and a guidance counselor were involved in airing concerns about the child possibly having a gun.
“If Assistant Principal (Ebony) Parker had acted on the information she was provided, then the shooting of Ms. Zwerner would not have happened,” the notice stated.
Zwerner went to former Assistant Principal Parker’s office about 11:15 a.m. “to advise her that the shooter seemed more ‘off’ than usual and was in a violent mood.” It also says the child had threatened to beat up a kindergarten student and “angrily stared down” a school security officer in the lunch room.
At about 11:45 a.m. a different teacher learned that the boy had told students he had a gun in his backpack, the notice state, but the teacher turned up empty-handed upon searching the backpack about 12:30 p.m., according to the Associated Press.
The same teacher “was made aware that the shooter had taken something out of his backpack right before she searched it, and the shooter put the item in the pocket of his hoodie before going out to recess,” the notice stated.
After the shooting, police said, the boy was taken to a medical facility where he is receiving unspecified services.
Meanwhile, the choking incident involved a different teacher was added in the notice of claim, which the instructor personally confirmed herself.
In 2021, the boy came up behind her as she sat in a chair in the front of the class, locked his forearms in front of her neck and pulled back and down, hard, hard enough to require a teaching assistant to pull the boy off her, she said.
That teacher, who requested to remain anonymous due to fears of potential retaliation from the school district.
She did report the incident to school administrators but, did not get the kind of supportive response she had hoped for from them.
“I didn’t feel safe the rest of the year because I knew if they didn’t protect me when he choked me and I couldn’t breathe, then they wouldn’t protect me, my kids or my colleagues if he did something not as harmful,” she told The Associated Press.
The boy was later moved into another class at another school, the outlet reports.
His mother had said he had an “acute disability,” but did not offer any specifics, The Shade Room reported last month.
