NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — A jury in Virginia began deliberating Wednesday in a $40 million lawsuit filed against a former school administrator accused of ignoring repeated warnings that a 6-year-old had a gun hours before a teacher was shot.

Closing arguments were held earlier Wednesday following a weeklong trial in the lawsuit filed by former teacher Abby Zwerner against Ebony Parker, a former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News.

Zwerner was shot in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom. Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries and does not have the full use of her left hand. A bullet narrowly missed her heart and remains in her chest.

Zwerner’s attorneys said Parker failed to act in the hours

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