TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Author: Trench Reynolds

  • Fourth victim in Amish school shooting dies

    Amish School Shooting Leaves Four Girls Dead:

    A fourth victim of Charles Carl Roberts IV has died…

    Three girls were pronounced dead soon after the incident. A fourth girl later died at a Pennsylvania hospital, and at least six victims were still critically wounded, FOXNews confirmed.

    Most of the victims had been shot execution-style at point-blank range after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said. Two young students were killed, along with a female teacher’s aide who was slightly older than the students, state police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.

    The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.

    My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

  • Hainstock’s bail set

    Judge Sets Bail For Accused Teen School Shooter:

    (AP) BARABOO, Wis. A judge set bail at $750,000 Monday for a 15-year-old boy accused of killing his high school principal after prosecutors said the teen may have been looking for others to attack as well.

    Sauk County District Attorney Pat Barrett told the judge there were other “persons of interest” for Eric Hainstock when he went to Weston Schools in Cazenovia Friday morning and shot Principal John Klang. She told reporters after the five-minute hearing that Hainstock may have had additional targets picked out.

    “There were potentially other people that he had a beef with at the time,” she said, but did not elaborate.

    Hainstock’s attorneys asked for $10,000 bail, saying the teen has lived in the Sauk County area his whole life and has no convictions.

    But Circuit Judge Patrick Taggart agreed with Barrett.

    “It goes without saying the public does need protection in this matter,” he said.

    $10,000 bail for shooting a man at point-blank range in cold blood? Defense attorneys never fail to crack me up.

    Search warrants show deputies found a note at Hainstock’s house from him to his father, along with boxes of ammunition, discipline reports from Weston Schools and a photo of a girl with her eyes poked out. Klang gave Hainstock a disciplinary notice for having tobacco in the school Thursday, the day before the shooting, according to the criminal complaint.

    Court records also say Eric Hainstock had a medical condition that affected his behavior but he was not receiving treatment because the family could no longer afford drugs or counseling.

    It seems like to me they just were too lazy to get him treatment or didn’t care. There are state agencies and programs designed to help people like this. Not that any of this is an excuse for killing.

  • Charles Carl Roberts IV

    Truck driver kills three girls in Amish school shooting:

    32-year-old truck driver Charles Carl Roberts IV, armed with three guns, a stun gun, two knives and a bag holding 600 rounds of ammunition, stormed an Amish school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He shot and killed three girls execution style, wounded eight others and took his own life.

    The suspect called 911 and “made a declaration that if the state police didn’t leave the property he would start shooting people within 10 seconds.”

    “Within seconds, he just started firing in rapid succession.”

    Police then stormed the schoolhouse through the windows and found Roberts dead, Miller said. He had fired at least one shotgun blast at police.

    The entire incident was supposedly revenge for an incident that happened 20 years ago.

    The Bart, Pennsylvania, resident had three children, and left several notes for his family “along the lines of suicide notes,” Miller said.

    The notes were “rambling” and “didn’t make much sense,” Miller said.

    Roberts did not respond when police at the scene attempted to communicate with him, and troopers were preparing to storm the schoolhouse before the shooting began, Miller said.

    Roberts’ wife tried to call him when she found the notes, Miller said. He returned the call on his cell phone, told her he wouldn’t be coming home and “that he was acting out to achieve revenge for something that happened 20 years ago.”

    What could have possibly happened when he was 12 for him to take it out on defenseless Amish school girls? He released the boys so he intentionally targeted the girls.

    Miller said that during the attack, Roberts apparently told students to line up in front of the blackboard. He began to tie his female captives’ feet together. He let the 15 boys in the classroom leave.

    Miller said Roberts also allowed an adult female who was pregnant to leave with three other adult females who had infant children with them.

    The teacher who was released was able to alert authorities, Miller said.

    “Apparently, there was some sort of issue in his past that for some reason, he wanted to exact revenge against female victims. That’s all I can tell you right now,” Miller said.

    Miller said Roberts’ grudge did not appear to involve the Amish community and that he may have chosen his target out of convenience, perhaps thinking “getting into a school like this was maybe just a little bit easier.”

    And was Roberts influenced by the Platte Canyon High School siege? He had to have been at least partially influenced by it. That’s too much of a coincidence.

    I’ll have more to say once more details become available.

  • Morrison staked out school

    Gunman possibly seen earlier:

    Police seem to think that Platte Canyon High gunman, Duane Morrison, staked out the school prior to his attack…

    BAILEY – The gunman who terrorized Platte Canyon High School on Wednesday, killing a 16-year-old hostage, may have been trolling the school parking lot as many as 24 hours before the rampage began, two law enforcement officials said Sunday.

    Investigators have a “strong suspicion” Duane Morrison was in the parking lot Tuesday, one of the sources said. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

    As usual in these situations, people are trying to lay blame. Is the school safe? How did this happen? I think people are over-analyzing the situation. This was a freak occurrence by an insane man. The people of Bailey should not be beating themselves up over this.

  • Amish school shooting

    CNN.com is reporting that multiple people have been shot at an Amish school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania but no article has been posted yet.

    Please post updates in the comments.

  • Hainstock’s claims a ‘total joke’

    Jailed teen drew teachers’ concern since preschool:

    One teacher at Weston High School says that Eric Hainstock’s claims of harassment are bogus…

    The gunfire that killed Principal John Klang early Friday seemed to echo through the rolling hills of rural Cazenovia as residents absorbed the shock of the slaying and the first-degree murder charges.

    Some said they were repelled by reports that Hainstock – being held in the Sauk County Jail in Baraboo – told investigators he just wanted someone to listen to his complaints about being tormented by classmates who rubbed up against him and called him “fag” and “faggot.”

    His special education teacher on Saturday called the claims a “total joke.” James Nowak said Hainstock didn’t give his anger management counselor a clue of what was to come.

    But Nowak, one of three special education teachers at the school, said Hainstock had just finished serving a three-day suspension. Nowak said that about two weeks ago, the student swore at him and, when he fled, threw a stapler at him.

    “He said something to me and scared me,” Nowak said. “I backed out of the room and got out of there and ran. The stapler flew past my head and hit the wall. He had the stapler open – it cracked the cement.”

    Police were called, and they released him to the custody of his father, Nowak said.

    Hainstock told police he gunned down Klang before classes began Friday because he was upset with a reprimand Klang had given him. He was facing an in-school suspension for having tobacco in school Thursday, the criminal complaint said.

    He told police he was also upset because he felt teachers didn’t stop students who harassed him, the complaint said.

    But Nowak said the youth was unlikely to have been the butt of jokes. “He wasn’t picked on,” he said. “He was the one who would have picked on people.”

    The description of Hainstock as victimized is “a total joke,” he said. “We stand up for these kids (special education students) as much as possible. We are advocates for the kids. If they are being picked on, we try to stop it.”

    The ultimate bullies are the ones that have to resort to guns to resolve their own issues.

  • Hainstock charged as adult

    Wisconsin teen charged in deadly school shooting:

    September 30, 2006 – A 15-year-old Wisconsin boy has been charged as an adult for murdering his principal. Police say Eric Hainstock went to his Cazenovia school armed with a pistol and a shotgun Friday morning where he shot the principal, John Klang, three times during a struggle. Klang later died at the hospital.

    Remember kids, no matter how big and bad you think you are because you have a gun there is always going to be someone bigger and badder than you when you’re spending the rest of your life behind bars. It’s not worth it.

  • Everyday it’s something hits me all so cold

    The troubled life of shooting suspect:

    You just had to know it was coming. The media are starting to roll out the excuse for why Eric Hainstock shot and killed Weston Schools principal John Klang. He was abused. He was bullied. He was a special ed student. And to all that I have to ask the usual question of common sense. So what?

    While the father, Shawn Hainstock, sounds like a real son of a bitch…

    The elder Hainstock kicked the boy several times in the hip area because he was angry that the boy, who was identified in the records by his initials and date of birth, had not watered some pets, the records indicate.

    Shawn Hainstock also poured hot sauce and hot peppers in the boy’s mouth for lying and using foul language, and threatened the boy with juvenile court and foster care, according to court records.

    …it sounds like the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree…

    Whatever his reasons, Hainstock had been a disruptive student for several years at both the Weston School District and in Reedsburg, where he attended elementary school, said Roger Frommund, a family friend.

    “(The shooting) shocks me, and yet it don’t shock me,” said Frommund, who said he last saw Hainstock in June 2005.

    “In the past, he’s had his problems. Even as a little boy, he was kind of disruptive,” said Frommund, whose grandson attended school with Hainstock in Reedsburg.

    And this is supposed to make us feel sorry for him…

    Hainstock, who’s being held in the Sauk County Jail, told investigators that students at the school had been picking on him, calling him “fag” and “faggot,” and that staff members wouldn’t stop them.

    Welcome to life kid. As usual, I have to reiterate that tons of kids throughout the history of schools in our world had bad home lives and were harassed in school. Except that the majority of them didn’t go on to kill anyone. And as far as the special ed argument goes…

    Harvey Schmuker, who lives on property adjoining the Hainstocks’, saw Eric Hainstock around 7 a.m. Friday morning carrying what looked like a car battery.

    “I always had an odd feeling” about Hainstock, Schmuker said, but added he was surprised by the shooting.

    Hainstock was a smart child, Schmuker said. “I’m sure he knew what he was doing. This (the shooting) must have been cooking for a little bit.”

    And the family is already making excuses…

    A man who identified himself only as a second cousin to Hainstock asked that the teen “be treated fairly” by the public.

    “I think people want to damn an individual for their actions and not take into consideration there are other circumstances that brought that on,” the man said. “What he did was a mistake. By our laws it’s inexcusable (but) I can sympathize with the fact that he was picked on quite extensively by his fellow classmates.”

    I bet John Klang’s family and friends wished that he was treated fairly instead of being shot in the head.

    There are never any excuses for a school shooting. But it seems that common sense and personal responsibility have entered some kind of suicide pact in Wisconsin.

  • Wisconisn principal dies after shooting

    Student kills Wisconsin principal:

    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.

  • A tout le monde

    Megadeth defends music Dawson College gunman loved:

    I am a huge Megadeth fan. I didn’t even know that Kimveer Gill had referenced one of my favorite Megadeth songs in his lunatic ravings. I was pissed when I found out. I can only imagine how pissed Dave Mustaine was…

    In his blog posted on vampirefreaks.com, Gill, who described himself as a huge Megadeth fan, had singled out the song À Tout le Monde, urging others to listen to it. He wrote in his blog that the song helped convince him to go on his shooting rampage that killed one and injured 19.

    Megadeth likes to perform the song À Tout le Monde in Montreal because the title and lyrics are in French, Mustaine said in an interview before the concert.

    The song’s chorus says: “A tout le monde/ A tous les amis/ Je vous aime/ Je dois partir,” which means: “To everyone/ To all my friends / I love you / I have to leave.”

    Mustaine was deeply offended when he found out Gill referred to the song in his online plans for Dawson.

    “I was so angry that this guy would use my song, and that he would try and turn that beautiful song into something ugly and nasty,” he said. The singer wrote the song about his mother, who died when Mustaine was young. “I had a dream that she came back to me, and said ‘I love you.’ That’s the whole song.”

    The song is in memory of the living, Mustaine explained. “It’s for those who lost their lives, and it’s a gift to those who are in the process of healing.”

    There was no question in Mustaine’s mind that Megadeth would perform the song in Montreal during their show Wednesday night. “[Gill] is not going to control us from the grave.”

    I don’t always agree with Dave Mustaine’s opinions but I have more respect for him now than I ever did.