Grandmother: Accused Weston school shooter was bullied

gazetteextra.com ^ | 04/18/07 | AP

[Ellesu]

BARABOO, Wis. - The teen accused of gunning down the Weston school principal last September told his grandmother afterward that "something snapped" in his head, she testified.

Irene Hainstock took the stand Tuesday at a hearing on whether Eric Hainstock, who turned 16 last week, should be prosecuted in juvenile court instead of adult court, where he is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Principal John Klang.

The charge carries a mandatory life prison term. If prosecuted as a juvenile, he could be incarcerated only until the age of 25, his lawyers have said.

According to prosecutors, Hainstock, a high school freshman, went to Weston Schools Sept. 29 with a shotgun and a handgun and shot Klang three times as the principal wrestled him to the ground.

Irene Hainstock said Eric seemed fine when she saw him the Sunday before the shooting.

She said she next talked to him "when we heard the news."

"I said, Eric, what have you done," she testified. "He said, 'Grandma, I don't know. It's like something snapped in my head."'

Pushed up to the witness stand in a wheelchair, she tearfully told about her relationship with her grandson and described his upbringing as troubled.

She said he had been bullied at school, including a time when a student held him by his ankles with his head in a toilet, and school personnel did not seem to do enough to help him.

But Sauk County District Attorney Patricia Barrett said a school report showed Eric Hainstock instigated the toilet incident, and that he had threatened other students and gone to school with powdered calcium that he said was cocaine and a mixture of Kool-Aid and cough syrup that he said was blood.

In eighth grade, Barrett said, he threw a chair in choir class and grabbed a teacher by her arm until it was numb as he screamed profanities.

Irene Hainstock said she was not aware of those incidents.

"Would you argue the defendant can be a very sweet boy when things are going his way, but that he wants things to go his way?" Barrett asked.

"I'm sure he wants things to go his way," Irene Hainstock said. "Just like any child."

She said she often talks with him by telephone from jail, and he tells her of the good grades he is earning and the bad dreams he has.

"He just kept saying, 'It's awful, it's awful, there's blood all over," she said. "I just wish he were the Eric I know."

Family friend Ruth Willis, leader of a church youth group that Eric Hainstock attended, said he generally got along with children at the church but complained of being bullied and abused at school, and he also would act out to get attention.

She recalled warning Mike Ecker, former principal at the school, as Hainstock's behavior worsened.

She said she told Ecker, "If he did not find help for this kid, he would have another Columbine (shooting) on his hands," she told the court. "I could see the anger in him."

The hearing was to continue Wednesday.

[freepertoo]

My personal opinion? We keep asking God to vacate our culture.

[Puppage]

We keep asking God to vacate our culture

That's a great observation. However, I would change the We to They

Pete

[freepertoo]

You’re right.

[gimme1ibertee]

Uh,yeah,a lot of us were bullied in school. Some of us learned how to fight with our fists and took it out in the playground after school and beat the poop outta each other,but we sure as he!! didn’t kill anyone over it.