According to Abigail Swerner and her lawyers, he already had problematic behavior and a history of unpredictable violence that the school administration chose to ignore. On January 6, a 25-year-old teacher was shot by one of her 6-year-old students at Richneck Elementary School in Virginia, in the southeastern United States.
Three months later, the young woman sued the school where she worked and claimed 40 million dollars. The teacher was hospitalized for almost two weeks and underwent 4 surgeries. And meanwhile, according to Abigail Swerner’s lawyers, school officials were aware of at least three warnings that the girl was carrying a weapon.
The student was in a “violent mood”
The year before the tragedy, the 6-year-old had also attempted to strangle his kindergarten teacher and lifted the dress of a girl who had fallen on the playground. The administration of his current school sent him to another school, but he accepted his return to enter elementary school.
The boy was on a modified schedule after “chasing students around the playground with a belt to spank them and insult staff and teachers.” At least one of his parents also had to be at school with him every day because of his “outbursts of violence.”
On January 4, two days before the tragedy, the student was suspended for one day after throwing his teacher’s phone on the ground. When he returned to school, he shot Abigail Swerner with a 9mm pistol when neither of her parents was there and no adult had been assigned to watch him.
Prior to the incident, the teacher had gone to see the school’s deputy principal to warn her that the student was in a “violent mood” and had attempted to assault a fellow student. According to Abigail Swerner’s attorneys, the assistant deliberately ignored the teacher’s concerns.
44,000 deaths by firearms in 2022
Another teacher had also been told by two students that the boy had a gun in his backpack. Even though the alarm went off again, the school administration had still not done anything.
After the tragedy, the American police had praised the heroism of Abigail Swerner who, despite her punctured hand, had managed to get the other students present to leave the classroom. Subsequently, local authorities temporarily withdrew custody of the child from his parents and admitted him to a medical center. In the United States, there were more than 44,000 gun deaths last year.
Source: BFM TV
