A jury in Virginia awarded $10 million on Nov. 6 to a former teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student, siding with her claims in a lawsuit that an ex-administrator ignored repeated warnings that the child had a gun. The jury returned its decision against Ebony Parker, a former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. Abby Zwerner was shot in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom. She had sought $40 million against Parker in the lawsuit. 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 did not address reporters outside the courthouse after the decision was announced. One of her attorneys, Diane Toscano, said the verdict sends a message that what happened at the school "was wrong and is not going to be tolerated; that safety has to be the first concern at school. I think it’s a great message.” Parker was the only defendant in the lawsuit. A judge previously dismissed the district’s superintendent and the school principal as defendants. The shooting sent shock waves through the community and the country at large, with many wondering how a child so young could gain access to a gun and shoot his teacher. The lawsuit said Parker had a duty to protect Zwerner and others from harm after being told about the gun. Zwerner’s attorneys said Parker failed to act in the hours before the shooting after several school staff members told her that the student had a gun in his backpack. “Who would think a 6-year-old would bring a gun to school and shoot their teacher?” Toscano told the jury earlier. “It’s Dr. Parker’s job to believe that that is possible. It’s her job to investigate it and get to the very bottom of it.” Parker did not testify. Her attorney, Daniel Hogan, had warned jurors about hindsight bias and “Monday morning quarterbacking” in the shooting. “You will be able to judge for yourself whether or not this was foreseeable,” Hogan said. “That’s the heart of this case. The law knows that it is fundamentally unfair to judge another person’s decisions based on stuff that came up after the fact. The law requires you to examine people’s decisions at the time they make them.” The shooting occurred on the first day after the student had returned from a suspension for slamming Zwerner’s phone two days earlier. Zwerner testified she first heard about the gun prior to class recess from a reading specialist who had been tipped off by students. The shooting occurred a few hours later. Despite her injuries, Zwerner was able to hustle her students out of the classroom. She eventually passed out in the school office. Zwerner testified she believed that she had died that day. Zwerner no longer works for the school district and has said she has no plans to teach again. She has since become a licensed cosmetologist. Parker faces a separate criminal trial this month on eight counts of felony child neglect. Each of the counts is punishable by up to five years in prison in the event of a conviction. The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. Her son told authorities he got his mother’s handgun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mom’s purse.

A federal judge said Thursday she will order federal agents in Chicago to restrict using force against peaceful protesters and news media outlets, saying current practices violate their constitutional rights. The preliminary injunction came in response to a lawsuit alleging federal agents have used excessive force in their immigration crackdown in the Chicago area. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis 's ruling, which is expected to be appealed by President Donald Trump's administration, refines an earlier temporary order that required agents to wear badges and banned them from using certain riot-control techniques, such as tear gas, against peaceful protesters and journalists. After repeatedly chastising federal officials for not following her previous orders, she added a requirement for body cameras. Ellis, who began Thursday’s hearing by describing Chicago as a “vibrant place” and reading from poet Carl Sandburg’s famous poem about the city, said it is “simply untrue” that the Chicago area is a violent place of rioters. A day earlier, attorneys for both sides repeatedly clashed in court over the accounts of several incidents during the immigration crackdown that began in September, including one where a Border Patrol commander threw a cannister of tear gas at a crowd. “I don’t find defendants’ version of events credible,” Ellis said. Ellis said agents will be required to give two warnings before using riot control weapons and that agents are restricted from using force unless it is “objectively necessary to stop an immediate threat.” She described protesters and advocates facing tear gas, having guns pointed at them and being thrown to the ground, saying “that would cause a reasonable person to think twice about exercising their fundamental rights.” The preliminary injunction stems from a lawsuit filed by news outlets and protesters who say agents have used too much force during demonstrations. In court, an attorney representing the federal government said senior Border Patrol official Greg Bovino, has a body-worn camera after Ellis required him to get one and complete the training for using it at a previous hearing. A message left Thursday for the Department of Homeland Security wasn’t immediately returned. During Wednesday's eight-hour hearing, witnesses gave emotional testimony when describing experiencing tear gas, being shot in the head with pepper balls while praying, and having guns pointed at them when recording agents in residential streets. Ellis questioned witnesses about how these experiences impacted them and if they prevented them from protesting again. One after another, witnesses described their anxiety about returning to protests or advocacy work. “I get really nervous because it just feels like I'm not safe,” Leslie Cortez, a youth organizer in the Chicago suburb of Cicero, told Ellis. “And I question my safety when I go out.” Attorneys also played footage of a five-hour deposition, or private interview, of Bovino where he defended agents' use of force and dodged questions about Border Patrol tactics in the nations' third-largest city.

A federal judge on Nov. 5 ordered prosecutors in the criminal case of former FBI Director James Comey to produce to defense lawyers a trove of materials from the investigation, saying he was concerned the U.S. Department of Justice’s position had been to “indict first" and investigate second. U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick instructed prosecutors to produce by the end of the day on Nov. 6 grand jury materials and other evidence that investigators seized during the investigation. The order followed arguments in which Comey’s attorneys said they were at a disadvantage because they had not been able to review information that was collected years ago as part of an investigation into FBI media leaks. Comey, who attended the hearing but did not speak, is charged with lying to Congress in 2020 in a case filed days after President Donald Trump appeared to urge his attorney general to prosecute the former FBI director and other perceived political enemies. Comey has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have argued that it's a vindictive prosecution brought at the direction of the Republican president and must be dismissed. Fitzpatrick raised his own concerns, telling lawyers on Nov. 5, “The procedural posture of this case is highly unusual.” He said it appeared to him that the DOJ had decided to “indict first” and investigate later. Comey's defense lawyers had already asked for a transcript of grand jury proceedings, citing irregularities in the process and potential legal and factual errors that they said could result in the dismissal of the case. The judge granted that request and ordered prosecutors to produce to defense lawyers evidence seized through search warrants in 2019 and 2020 from Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law professor and close friend of Comey. Richman factors into the case because prosecutors say that Comey had encouraged him to engage with reporters about matters related to the FBI and that Comey therefore lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he denied five years ago having authorized media leaks. But Comey’s lawyers say he was explicitly responding to a question about whether he had authorized former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to serve as an anonymous source. Comey’s lawyers told the judge they had not reviewed the materials taken from Richman, who had earlier served as a lawyer for Comey, and thus could not know what information was privileged and may have been improperly used as evidence. “We’re going to fix that, and we’re going to fix that today,” the judge said. Comey's indictment came days after Trump in a social media post called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against Comey and other longtime foes of the president. The indictment was brought by Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide and Trump lawyer who was installed as U.S. attorney after the longtime prosecutor who had been overseeing the investigation resigned under administration pressure to indict Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The DOJ in court papers earlier this week defended the president's social media post, contending it reflects “legitimate prosecutorial motive” and is no basis to dismiss the indictment.