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A ninth-grader shot his principal three times in a rural school just before classes were to start Friday, after a custodian wrested from the boy one of the two weapons he had carried into the building, the sheriff said. No one else was hurt.
The custodian took a shotgun from the 15-year-old before the student shot Weston Schools Principal John Klang with a handgun in the hallway near the school's main entrance, Sauk County Sheriff Randy Stammen said. The student was in custody, he said.
Klang was in critical condition when he was taken by helicopter from Reedsburg Area Medical Center to UW Hospitals in Madison, hospital spokespeople said.
Authorities did not know the student's motive and did not know if Klang was the intended target, Stammen said.
The student walked into the school about 8 a.m. and shot Klang three times as the principal approached and others tried to disarm the teenager, Stammen said.
Junior Timmy Donovan saw the student walk into the school with a shotgun.
"The janitor grabbed it away from him," Donovan said. "And as he was walking away he pulled a .22 pistol out of his pants, and then started shooting the principal. And at that point, I guess the principal ran and tackled him to the ground, and then he had other teachers going over and helping him."
Children from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade attend the small school near Cazenovia, a community of about 300 people about 60 miles northwest of Madison.
Sophomore Shelly Rupp said she heard five shots and ran out of the school, but turned around and saw Klang as he was shot.
"He was laying on the ground in the hallway," the 16-year-old said at a nearby gas station where students and townspeople gathered following the shooting.
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According to police
By Peter, October 2, 2006 at 09:06According to police interviews, the Weston High School freshman accused of shooting and killing the principal brought guns to school out of sheer frustration.
In the criminal complaint, Eric Hainstock, 15, said, "A group of students had been picking on him at school. The school's teachers and principal would not do anything about the other students."
Friday morning, Hainstock pried open the family's gun cabinet and took a shotgun, then he took "a handgun from his parents locked bedroom. He knows where the key to the bedroom is hidden and used that to enter and get the gun. He then locked the door again."
Hainstock told investigators a group of kids had teased him by calling him names and rubbing up against him. On top of that, the complaint says Hainstock had received a disciplinary warning from the principal Thursday for having tobacco on school grounds, and he was likely facing an in-house suspension, requiring that he be under supervision at school but not attend regular classes.
Earlier this week, Hainstock told a friend the principal would not "make it through homecoming."
"He decided to confront the students and teachers and principal with the guns to make them listen to him," the criminal complaint reads.
Hainstock was first confronted by a custodian and teacher who saw him walking toward the school with the shotgun. Dave Thompson told reporters, "As he came in the front door, Chuck Keller, the teacher, asked him what he was doing with the gun at school, and I kind of stepped aside and we had him in between us, and he said he was here to kill somebody. And then he kind of pointed the gun in the teacher's face. When he did that, then I grabbed the barrel of the gun and tried to keep the gun up in case it went off, and he looked at me like, What are you touching this gun for, and I literally ripped it out of his hands."
But Hainstock broke away and was then confronted by principal John Klang. The complaint says Principal Klang tried to wrestle the handgun away from Hainstock. There was enough time to make a Code Blue announcement over the school's intercom, so teachers had time to lock their classroom doors and students could find cover under their desks.
"Then he shot the principal, he intentionally pulled the trigger three times," shooting Principal Klang in the head, chest, and leg.
Klang died seven hours later.