NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A Newport News judge on Thursday granted a motion to strike the criminal case against a former Richneck Elementary School assistant principal — tossing all eight felony charges against her before the jury got the case.

Circuit Court Judge Rebecca M. Robinson ruled that prosecutors failed to prove that Ebony J. Parker’s actions or inactions on Jan. 6, 2023, amounted to a crime.

In so doing, Robinson ended a jury trial at the beginning of its fourth day.

“The court finds that what has been presented to it is a mash-up of legal theories,” Robinson said. “It is not clear based upon the plain meaning of the statute that these facts are crimes.”

Robinson granted Parker’s lawyers’ motion to strike before the defense began putting on their case. Though statistics on the granting of such motions are difficult to come by, local attorneys said being granted such a motion is a rarity.

In the end, Robinson determined that the basis for the “unprecedented” charges against a school administrator weren’t enough to keep the trial going.

When the judge announced a few minutes later that “these charges are dismissed,” Parker leaned over at the defense table and broke down in tears.

The eight child neglect charges against Parker stemmed from the 2023 case in which a 6-year-old boy brought his mother’s handgun into school that morning and shot his teacher, Abby Zwerner, that afternoon.

The charges — filed by a special grand jury in August 2024 — were based on how many rounds were in the gun that day..

According to trial evidence, three students at Richneck told teachers the boy had a gun, and those concerns were relayed to Parker after teachers also noticed the boy was acting unusually.

The prosecution asserted that Parker failed to act on those concerns, putting the lives of other Richneck students at risk even as she alone had the “knowledge and authority” to act. She was charged under a state statute that makes it a felony to commit a willful “act or omission” while caring for a child who “shows a reckless disregard for human life.”

Each of the eight counts would have been punishable by five years behind bars.

But Parker’s lawyers continuously objected to prosecution evidence during the trial. They cast blame on other Richneck educators, including Zwerner, for failing to prevent the shooting, asserting that what happened was completely unforeseeable.

During the trial, those teachers acknowledged on cross-examination that they could have called 911 or separated the potentially armed student from his classmates.

Ebony Parker leaves Newport News Circuit Court after her trial on felony child neglect charges was dismissed by Newport News Circuit Court Judge Rebecca M. Robinson, not pictured, in Newport News on Thursday. (Peter Casey / The Virginian-Pilot) Parker’s supporters in the courtroom were elated with Robinson’s ruling.

“It’s by the grace of God,” Parker’s mother said as family members walked from the courthouse following the ruling.

“It’s been a long, long haul, for not a good reason,” she said as her eyes welled with tears, lamenting that her daughter’s education career was cut short.

Newport News Circuit Court Judge Rebecca M. Robinson listens to attorneys during the trial of Ebony Parker on felony child neglect charges at Newport News Circuit Court on Thursday. (Peter Casey / The Virginian-Pilot)“She’s a really great educator,” she said of her daughter. “A great teacher. A great person to advocate for the kids. That’s what breaks my heart, because these kids need every help they can get.”

One of Parker’s attorneys, Curtis Rogers, said that while she might have “made a mistake” and had a “lapse in judgment” on that day in 2023, she did not commit a crime. Rogers said that many people had been praying for Parker, and “those prayers were answered.”

“It’s a great relief,” said another of her lawyers, Stephen Teague, who added that he’s never previously been granted a motion to strike in a felony trial.

Parker declined to comment much, but cracked a broad smile as she got into an SUV with a relative. “I just want to go home,” she said.

After the shooting, Parker kept a low profile. She did not testify at her civil trial last fall. But on Wednesday, prosecutors played for jurors the recorded Zoom call of Parker speaking to the Newport News Public Schools human resources department after the shooting.

In that video, Parker said she didn’t order a search of the boy because it was getting so late in the afternoon. “His mom is due to come here soon,” Parker explained at the time. “We’ll let her go through the rest of his things and check it.”

Also in the recorded interview, Parker fought back tears when saying that Zwerner — who was still in the hospital at the time — never told her that she felt unsafe being around the boy who shot her.

Headlines were made across the world when the 6-year-old shot his teacher in the first-grade Richneck classroom on Jan. 6, 2023. The boy had climbed onto his mother’s dresser that morning, removed the firearm from her purse and took it to school in his backpack.

According to trial evidence, the boy removed the gun from his hoodie pocket and fired it at Zwerner from about 10 feet away. The bullet shattered the teacher’s left hand, with a large bullet fragment still lodged in her upper chest.

“I thought I had died,” she testified at a jury trial last fall. “I thought I was on my way to heaven or in heaven.”

The shooter’s mother, Deja Nicole Taylor, was previously sentenced to about 3 ½ years of combined state and federal prison time — for child neglect in state court and gun and drug and gun offenses in federal court.

The case’s prosecutor, Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Joshua Jenkins, deferred questions about Thursday’s ruling to his boss, Hampton Commonwealth’s Attorney Anton Bell.

Only weeks after the 2023 shooting, former Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn asked a Circuit Court judge to appoint a special grand jury to the case. That resulted in the eight felony counts against Parker in August 2024.

But after Gwynn lost a bid for reelection in April 2025, Jenkins — who was handling the Parker prosecution under Gwynn — took a job under Bell in Hampton. Gwynn soon asked a judge to appoint Bell to the case, with the Hampton prosecutor assigning it to Jenkins.

“From the outset, this case carried significant importance to the community,” Bell said in a news release. “It was the citizens of Newport News, through the grand jury process, who determined that indictments against Ebony Parker were appropriate based upon the evidence presented.”

Bell said he wished the jury had gotten the chance to hear the evidence in the case, but that Robinson “concluded the matter as she deemed appropriate under the law.”

In handing down her ruling Thursday, Robinson read from prepared remarks. She said she listened to the evidence over the past several days while attempting to determine Parker’s criminal conduct.

Is the crime, the judge asked, that Parker failed to follow Newport News Public Schools policy on the search? (She noted that the policy requires two people to search a child’s “person,” but that a second administrator and school security officer weren’t available at the time in any event.)

Or is the crime, Robinson asked, that Parker didn’t direct a search of the child’s “person” after being informed the boy’s bookbag was clear of a firearm? (Even as it was later determined that he had moved the gun to his jacket and taken it to recess.)

Robinson said she wondered if the eight counts were based on the number of children in Zwerner’s classroom when the gun was fired. Or were they based on the number of rounds in the firearm at the time?

Robinson also alluded to testimony on Wednesday from parents of children who were in school on Jan. 6, 2023.

“Is the delayed reunification (between children and their families) the reckless disregard for human life?” Robinson asked. “Is it the emotional trauma of the exposed child who was in the classroom? … Is it the fearfulness, bed wetting, the hypervigilance of all the children in school that day?”

“The court is unclear, and … those legal theories do not fit the plain meaning of the statute,” Robinson said. “Therefore, I do grant the defense motion to strike, in whole, on all eight counts.”

Robinson, who grew up in Newport News, ascended to the Circuit Court bench in August 2025 after serving six years on the city’s Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. She previously spent about 14 years as a public defender in various Hampton Roads cities.

“My ruling today is based upon legal principles only,” she said. “It is inappropriate for me to give my personal thoughts or express sympathy or concern, but understand that what happened that day was awful.”

With that, she seated the jurors — who were just arriving at the courthouse — to thank them for their service.

Zwerner won a $10 million jury verdict against Parker last fall, but the matter remains under appeal.

On Thursday, Zwerner’s attorneys said any arguments the school board’s insurance pool might use to deny coverage for Parker on account of criminal wrongdoing is now moot.

“Today that is no longer an excuse,” said attorneys Diane Toscano, Kevin Biniazan and Jeffrey Breit.

Moreover, lawsuits brought by several students’ families are still pending.

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