Wisconisn principal dies after shooting

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CAZENOVIA, Wis. — A teenager brought two guns to his rural school and shot the principal to death Friday after struggling with him, authorities said.

The 15-year-old was taken into custody and charged with first-degree intentional homicide, the district attorney said. No one else was hurt.

The homecoming weekend shooting comes one day after Weston Schools Principal John Klang gave the student, Eric Hainstock, a disciplinary warning for having tobacco on school grounds, the criminal complaint said.

Hainstock had told a friend the principal would not “make it through homecoming,” the complaint said.

Hainstock said that a group of kids had teased him by calling him “fag” and “faggot” and by rubbing up against him, the complaint said, and the teen felt teachers and the principal wouldn’t do anything about it.

So Hainstock decided to confront students, teachers and the principal with the guns to make them listen to him, according to the complaint.

So Friday morning, he pried open his family’s gun cabinet, took out a shotgun and then took a handgun from his parent’s bedroom, the complaint said.

The complaint said he shot the principal intentionally three times.

A custodian and teacher saw Hainstock enter Weston Schools with a shotgun before classes began Friday morning, according to witnesses and investigators. Hainstock pointed the gun at a social studies teacher, but the custodian wrested the gun from the teen. When Hainstock reached for another gun, the custodian and teacher ran for cover.

Then Klang went into the main hallway and confronted Hainstock. A teacher said after the shots were fired, Klang, already wounded, somehow wrestled Hainstock to the ground and swept the gun away, the complaint said.

The 49-year-old principal died Friday afternoon at University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison after being shot in the back of the head, chest and leg, authorities said. An autopsy was scheduled for Saturday.

No death penalty in Wisconsin, just for victims.

And if you think being called a “fag” in high school is bad just wait until you get to prison. You’ll wish you were back in high school.

Comments

31 responses to “Wisconisn principal dies after shooting”

September 29, 2006

femfoison

I usually agree with you, and you may be right, but I think it’s important to note this quote from the CNN article:

“The custodian said the teen was a special-education student who told him he was there to kill someone, but did not say who.”

It certainly seems like it is still possible this teen may have been functioning with sub-par capacities.

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September 29, 2006

darklord666

this kid did the right thing and i applaud him for his actionjs he was bullied and bullied people are allowed to kill people

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September 29, 2006

Trench

He had enough capabilities to break into his parents’ gun cabinet and load and fire two guns.

Special-ed students can also be students with disciplinary problems.

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September 29, 2006

Trench

Are you intentionally trying to troll or are you just an idiot?

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September 29, 2006

OnCrime

You are so right Trench! Kids calling him a “fag” is nothing compared to what he will face in prison!

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September 30, 2006

Andrew Rhodes

Trench,
Each individual responds differently to different levels of abuse (which is what bullying is).

I don’t have a clear impression of what kind of “special education” student he was. Trouble maker, Mental instability, educational or mental retardation, or what.

But the statement made in the article that he felt the principal and teachers wouldn’t do anything about the abuse is a very common, yet unspoken/unpublicized feeling of abuse victims in regards to authority figures. Whether it was realistic or not doesn’t matter. It’s what he preceived.

Does that make the path he chose to dieal with the problem justifiable? Absolutely not. But singling him out as if the abusers (students) and/or possible supporters of the abusers (authority figures (teachers/principal)) were not responsible for leading him down the path he ended up taking would be naive, at the least. They are responsible for their own actions, which left him with fewer options open and fewer paths to follow. They can’t be held accountable for the shooting, that’s his resonsibility. But they can, and should, be held responsible for directing him along those particular paths.

Again, it wasn’t a justifiable act. Merely one I can understand.

Andrew

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September 30, 2006

Trench

Think about it though. Realistically what could the principal have done? If Mr. Klang punished Hainstock’s tormentors that would only lead to increased harrassment. The school administrators can only do so much.

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September 30, 2006

Trench is a joke

isnt that what Kimveer Gill said to you? And isn’t that the same response you gave him, angering him even more? Kimveer specifically mentioned how angry you made him in some of his journal entries that weren’t on VF and you made him even more homicidal. He wanted to kill you, actually.

Why don’t you think before you push more people over the edge, Trench? Or do you enjoy playing a part in pushing kids toward violence?

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September 30, 2006

Trench is a joke

Oh that’s right. “What could they have done?”

Each time another student is being harassed, tormented, abused… “what could they REALLY honestly do, realistically?”

Don’t you see, that’s the problem.

The adults DONT do anything about it and the kids KNOW they won’t do anything, because, like you, they share the opinion of “Well gee, what can we actually do?”

Ill tell you what they can do. Give the abuser a choice. Either stop, or have abuse charges pressed against them. Either stop, or not pass the grade. Stop, or fail the class.

When those options aren’t administered by teachers, we make our own ultimatum: STOP OR WE’LL FUCKING KILL YOU.

Oh Trench, it’s so simple.

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September 30, 2006

Trench

Are you saying you’re planning a shooting?

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September 30, 2006

Trench is a joke

I’m saying exactly what I just said.

Kimveer Gill came to your website and posted about understanding the school shootings that are going on. You then proceeded to call him an idiot, a moron and a loser. It pissed him off and made him want to kill YOU as well as himself. His anger grew, and he ended his life, someone elses life and ruined the lives of many others.

Now we have the same scenario where there is someone here saying they understand shootings (as do I – its really not that hard) and yet this person is saying exactly what Kim said – that THE SHOOTER DID THE RIGHT THING. And you are calling them names? Do you realize that you are pushing people’s buttons and further angering them?

Trench, it doesn’t matter if you think your words shouldn’t have that effect on them. It doesn’t matter that they are already angry. Something has to be the final straw. I’m afraid that with Kimveer, you were part of it.

And now… you’re probably going to make it a habit the way you talk to these kids.

You’re not helping, you’re furthering their anger. You don’t give a shit about them. All you do is complan and push them along. You have no idea how many of these violent people hate you. You’re damn lucky we havent chosen to make your address publicly known. These people would be crawling all over your doorstep like hungry wolves, waiting to devour their prey.

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September 30, 2006

Trench

Kimveer Gill came to your website and posted about understanding the school shootings that are going on. You then proceeded to call him an idiot, a moron and a loser.

And he proved me right.

t pissed him off and made him want to kill YOU

Prove it.

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September 30, 2006

Trench

When those options aren’t administered by teachers, we make our own ultimatum: STOP OR WE’LL FUCKING KILL YOU.

Sounds like a threat to me.

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September 30, 2006

Trench

You have no idea how many of these violent people hate you. You’re damn lucky we havent chosen to make your address publicly known. These people would be crawling all over your doorstep like hungry wolves, waiting to devour their prey.

That sounds like a threat too.

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September 30, 2006

Lach Graham

Well Trench, it looks like the School Shooting epidemic is officially re-started. Three shootings in a fortnight, fucking hell.

I have a bad feeling that there’s gonna be more now…

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September 30, 2006

Andrew Rhodes

Trench,
The other is making, in their own way, some valid points.

In school, we are preparing kids for the future. Some say we should be including other social classes as well. A “dealing with life” class if you will. Or a “practical applications” class where one takes what one has learned in general education and applies it to life. Balancing a checkbook, filling out resumes, getting a job, cooking meals, on and on. But there is already an unstructured class going on. A class in abuse.

Take away the accepted term of “bullying” and call it what it is: abuse. In outside life, abuse takes the form of mental, verbal, physical, and sexual forms.

Each form appears in a variety of settings. From home, to neighborhood, to the workplace, to enclosed social settings (bars, and other entertainment settings for example), to other places you can name.

When someone breaks an abuse law, we hold that individual responsible, either through legal civil and/or criminal means. Doesn’t matter if it’s sexual harrassment, child abuse, a hate crime, gang activity (yes, physical abuse, though there may different names for it such as assault (physical abuse)), and so on and so forth.

But in school, it’s “bullying” and “there’s little we can do about it, though we tell them not to”. You say, if the abuse is dealt with, it could escalate. Abuse could escalate in the outer world too. But we still hold people responsible for their acts. Arrest one gang member for assault and the others might retaliate, but we don’t say “don’t report it because we can’t do anything to stop it in the end”. Same with domestic violence, sexual harrassment, or even slurs about race, sexuality, or others in the work place.

But not at school. And what does this end up teaching the kid about the future? That they can’t trust authority figures?

According to claims (and not everything is totally clear in this case yet), this kid was verbally abused based on bigotry about his claimed sexual orientation. Whether it was true that he was homosexual or not is irrelevant. If, in its own way, this was one teacher making such abusive claims about another teacher, what should have been done? Nothing? According tot he story, there was also physical contact (“rubbing”). Let’s hit the button more clearly here: If a male student were physically rubbing up against a female student and it was against her will, should we ignore it? If you say “no”, why should we do so in this case? If the kid didn’t want it happening, then it’s just as much physical abuse as the male/female one. If you say “yes”, then does that mean that a co-worker can be doing the same thing, touching someone without their permission in an inappropriate manner, with no consequences?

Yes, the authority figures SHOULD take appropriate action. And a clear statement that such action will be taken should be made public to begin with. At the beginning of the school year, not only announce to staff and students, but make a public announcement, that abuse in the schools will NOT be tolerated any more than it is tolerated in settings outside the school and that action will be taken as appropriate to the act of abuse. Drop the “bully” term. It implies that the acts are, in a sense, acceptable. Let the students know that, as authority figures, they are going to regain control and start setting examples for how the kids should act once they are outside the school environment. Also let authority figures know that action will be taken if it’s proven that they ignored an abusive situation.

Also note, I’m not talking about authority figures doing the work for the students. The proper procedure is for the victim to say “Stop!”. That gives the kid the appropriate amount of control over themselves. If the abuse doesn’t stop, then they report the abuse to the authority figures. It’s how adults deal with abuse, so it’s how they should learn to do it too.

And I should reiterate that I don’t think this kid’s decision was the RIGHT thing, but it was one of only a very few options left to him not only by other students but by the authority figures. So I understand it. Doesn’t make it justifiable, just understandable. The authority figures and abusive students should be held responsible for their own actions as well.

Andrew

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September 30, 2006

Andrew Rhodes

Oh, and sorry about the long post. I do tend to write them to make sure my stance is clear (examples and all that rot), if not to everyone else, at least to me. 🙂

Bad habit really. I’ll try to behave. 🙂

Andrew

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September 30, 2006

Boo Radley

seeing that he was called a “fag” makes me wonder… so was he gay?

if so, was he flamboyently gay and running around making it obvious to everyone after being encouraged to do so by those gay clubs in schoools?

and after rubbing it in everyones face, was he upset that they didnt respond well? that he couldnt force them to like him?

this is just speculation of course, but I got the same vibe from kimver gill when he listed ‘homophobes’ on his dislikes.

some crazy liberals claim to hate ‘intolerance’ but really they are extremely intolerant of anyone who doesnt play along with their agenda.

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September 30, 2006

boo radley

here is a blog I found when searching info on if kimveer was gay, I didnt find out, but I found someone sympathizing with him:

http://montrealsimon.blogspot.com/2006/09/in-shadow-of-angel-of-death.html

“In my loneliness and despair, I retreated into myself and began to fancy myself as a killing machine, as some kind of Gay Avenger. I accumulated a small arsenal of two semiautomatic 22 calibre rifles, lots of hollow point ammunition, a powerful air gun (to take out their eyes) and a frightening looking commando knife. I dreamed of storming into the pizzeria on Duluth street where the posse hung out, and blowing them away. I don’t know if I was ready to die. But I’m pretty sure I was ready to kill. I hated the world like Eric Harris did. I was so fucking angry. All the time.”

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September 30, 2006

femfoison

Yes, but mental capacity and emotional capacity are two very different things. I work with adults with developmental disabilities, and believe me, they are MORE than capable of lying, manipulating, and stealing to get their way. And I’ve been punched, in the face, more than once by many of the clients. Many of them lack the filter we have in our brains to prevent acts of violence.

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September 30, 2006

femfoison

Yes, but mental capacity and emotional capacity are two very different things. I work with adults with developmental disabilities, and believe me, they are MORE than capable of lying, manipulating, and stealing to get their way. And I’ve been punched, in the face, more than once, by many of the clients. Many of them lack the filter we have in our brains to prevent acts of violence.

Of course, you could be right. He could have had disciplinary problems, or not have any symptoms of PDD, autism, mental retardation, OCD, etc. I just don’t think we have enough information to jump to judgement yet.

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September 30, 2006

Weapon of Mass Disturbance

I tried to warn you.

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September 30, 2006

Trench

Which sounds great on paper but you’re leaving out one important piece of the puzzle, the parents of the bullies. Too many of them have the “Not My Kid” syndrome and refuse what to believe what the school tells them and threaten to take legal action against the schools if their kids are punished. The school sare too afraid to saqtnd up to the parents. Fix that problem and then you have a solution.

Don’t worry about the length of your posts. You’re more than welcome to post here.

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September 30, 2006

Andrew Rhodes

Yes, there a lot of parents who follow the idea that their kids are “perfect” and can’t do anything bad. Or that if another kid can’t stand up to theirs, then the victim deserves what they get (The strong dominating the weak).

Frankly, I find such parents to be the same as the authority figures who ignore abuse.

Also, if I could, if there were such a lawsuit by the parent of an abuser, I’d sit on the stand myself and make the very statement I did here. We expect adults to report abuse, whether to them or someone else. We expect the authority figures (police, social workers, etc) to do something when an adult makes a complaint about abuse. So why should it be any different in the school setting? We should instill a feeling in kids that they can trust their authority figures at the early ages. What does it teach them when they can’t? What does it teach abusers in the school setting about authority figures?

Some folks think that some laws are nothing more than adhering to Political Correctness. Sexual Harrassment and Hate Crimes that start out as verbal bigotry. Why would we create laws to protect adults but tell the more impressionable kids to just take it and live with it? It’s claimed adults are made of sterner stuff, aren’t they?

Andrew

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September 30, 2006

Trench is a joke

No, it’s called REALITY. You’re looking at the wrong person for the threat, Trench. The threat of violence is all over your disgusting website. All of these kids who are posting, cheering on the school shooters today will one day become the shooters. Piss them off enough and they might want to kill you, too.

It’s fact. And your behavior is atrocious. You’re egging them on and furthering their hatred.

There is no threat from me, honey pie, it’s written all over this page. And when they do snap, I’ll make sure to start a log of all of the “school shooters” Patrick Reynolds has encouraged and further harassed. Maybe I’ll get their parents together and we will sue you. You wouldn’t want ducksauce to be fatherless, would you?

Is that a threat? I wouldn’t know.

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September 30, 2006

Trench is a joke

like I said before, the threats are what I’m telling you about. They are already here, on this page.

You’re pissing off the violent teenagers and you’re pusing them toward violence by angering them even more.

Take it as you will, but just know that with this generation, the message they are giving us is “im being abused and you aren’t helping me, you are telling me to get over it, so now im going to kill you”

That’s the truth. Don’t you see it? Are you really that blind and stupid? Wait, don’t answer that.

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September 30, 2006

Trench is a joke

Hey, Weapon of Mass Disturbance, don’t bother with Trench. You can’t reason with him nor have a conversation with him. Trench is like flatulence… he’s full of hot air and makes a big stink for no good reason — just to piss people off. He makes people gag and he’s not appropriate for the dinner table and you DEFINITELY don’t want him under YOUR covers at night.

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September 30, 2006

Trench

So what you’re saying is that you don’t have proof.

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September 30, 2006

eric hainstock is god

haha i know all he did was kill some principal i mean come on he deserved to die anyway because he wouldnt help eric and now eric is God and the principle is the demon

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December 25, 2006

nightshade

..Holy Fuck! … Holy Shit! the pizzaria on Duluth street! Oye!Holy Macaronies! ha,ha,ha This city has gone totally MAD!

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December 25, 2006

nightshade

… no he was not gay, boo radley. And for that matter,he did have girlfriends, one of them wore lace, a pettie girl,cute too. i saw them together one night,at a club. You should have meet kimveer, as he grew out of being a teenager and into a young adult,..he was handsome,there was a strenght about his masculinity, a strange type of strenght, eminateing from deep within. i thought he was a fighter of some sort,back then. THEN after the 13th,i picked up the pieces thru the newspapers,… and found out he loved to wrestle. there’s alot of things i *Felt* when our paths crossed, some where reaffirmed by papper or web. Then there is ‘some things’ i felt that i cannot find written about. we shall see… we shall see…

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