NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — It was a gunshot heard around the world: On the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2023, a 6-year-old student at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News took out a gun he stole from his mother and shot his first grade teacher, Abby Zwerner.

The bullet went through her hand and into her chest. Within hours, the news had been picked up by U.S. news outlets, in addition to European and Asian sources. Zwerner, then a 25-year-old graduate of James Madison University, became a household name.

Over the next two-plus years, Zwerner's legal team would successfully argue that she has the right to pursue a $40 million lawsuit against the Newport News School Division, alleging that school leaders — a group that was eventually whittled down to former Assistant Principal Ebony Parker, the lon

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