NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) – Two educators who were teaching at Heritage High School on the day a teenager shot two classmates in a hallway filed lawsuits against Newport News and state school administrators.
The tandem lawsuits were filed by Michelle Webb, who was a 12th-grade teacher at the time of the shooting, and her former teaching assistant, Leslie Turner. Webb and Turner are asking for $1.6 million and $2.6 million in damages respectively. The lawsuits were filed on Thursday against the Newport News School Board, the Virginia Department of Education, former Newport News Superintendent George Parker, III, and HHS Principal Dr. Earling Hunter.
15-year-old Jacari Taylor fired several shots into a crowded hallway inside HHS on Sept. 20, 2021 after he got into a fight with two other students. Two 17-year-old students were wounded by the gunfire. They both survived, but the father of one of the students said his son has permanent injuries, including hearing loss.
Taylor pleaded guilty to six felony charges in April 2022 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Just six months before the shooting, Taylor was convicted of malicious wounding and the use of a firearm and was ordered to wear an ankle monitor. The lawsuits allege that the felony charges arose from an incident that happened at HHS. It also claims that Newport News school administrators knew that Taylor had a history of violence and was a convicted felon, but allowed him to come back to HHS without adequate monitoring or safety precautions in place.
Webb and Turner were teaching in a nearby classroom when they heard the sound of gunfire. The lawsuits detail their harrowing experiences, including directing their students to drop to the floor and huddle in a corner of the classroom. The lawsuits describe the teachers and students as “sitting ducks” due to a picture window facing the main hallway and a rectangular glass window in their classroom door.
The lawsuits claim that the educators were unprepared for a school shooting because Newport News school administrators failed to provide them with a safety plan and exit strategy “due to a lack of school response training specific to Heritage High School.”
The lawsuits also allege that Newport News school administrators failed to provide a safe working and learning environment by not regularly using metal detectors and failing to have a student resource officer designated specifically to HHS. The lawsuits state that there was one SRO assigned to HHS, but that they were also assigned to several other district schools. It also claims that metal detectors were removed from HHS after a group of parents became upset because they didn’t want students to feel like they were going into “a detention home.” Parker also publicly expressed a dislike for the daily use of metal detectors because he believed they made schools look like prisons, according to the lawsuits.
Following the shooting at HHS, Newport News Public Schools put a safety plan committee in place, hired six SROs for the campus, installed metal detectors (although they are not used daily), and employed deterrent methods like wands, classroom and bag searches, and quick scans. The lawsuits allege these safety measures were done too late to prevent students and staff from being injured and traumatized.
The lawsuits also allege that the measures were not enough and that NNPS did not get serious about preventing gun violence in schools until January 2023 when a 6-year-old boy brought his mother’s gun to Richneck Elementary School and shot his teacher, Abby Zwerner. She survived but has also sued the NNSB and other administrators, alleging that they failed to protect her from a violent student.
10 On Your Side reached out to NNPS for comment. A spokesperson responded “Newport News Public Schools cannot comment on legal actions.”
10 On Your Side’s Regina Mobley will have more on this story starting on WAVY News 10 at 4 p.m.
