Wisconsin teens threatened with flamethrower

BARABOO, Wisconsin (WISC) — The mothers of several Baraboo High School students forced out of their car last week have asked for restraining orders against and are calling for the resignation of the district’s athletic director, who students say was involved in the incident. Two temporary restraining orders so far have been granted.

Meanwhile, the Ho-Chunk Nation is calling on federal officials to investigate the case as a potential bias incident.

According to court records, only one man, John Kolar, was charged with disorderly conduct in the incident where several adults were initially arrested. Five students drove past a home that had recently been TP’ed last week as part of homecoming; Kolar is accused of forcing the car to stop and shooting a flamethrower, screaming profanities at the kids, and forcing two of them out of the car and onto their knees.

Several adults were involved and arrested, including at one point Baraboo’s athletic director, James Langkamp. Talking to police, he denied being involved in the incident until after the students had been forced out of the car, where he walked up to help de-escalate the situation. Witnesses said he didn’t scream at the kids; court records say his voice is heard at the end of a recording of the incident and Langkamp told police later he had “yelled at them a bit.”

The students, however, say he was one of those who stopped the car.

“He was there and saw the dude with the flamethrower and he still, like, stopped the car knowing [Kolar] could have burned us with the flamethrower,” Teflon Lee, a senior inside the car, said. “He put us in danger that way.”

Langkamp is now on non-disciplinary administrative leave as the district conducts an internal investigation, a Baraboo school spokesperson said.

We understand that students are talking about the situation and have counselors available if students would like to talk to someone,” spokesperson Liz Crammond added in response to a question about how administration was handling conversations with students involved.

Students, parents say part of incident was racially-charged

Last Wednesday night, four students of color and one white student were in the car that bystanders in court records accused of speeding as it turned onto the dead end road with John Kolar’s house. It was at that moment, high school junior and car driver John Beaudin said, that he saw a man shooting a flamethrower and screaming profanities at them. He panicked.

“I was really just trying to get out of there as fast as possible,” he told News 3 Now. (The students first spoke to Madison365 this weekend.) “I don’t think it was necessarily reckless.”

He drove past the house and tried to turn around in the dead-end area to leave. As the car turned, he said two men jumped out in front of it. Students in the back seat urged him to turn around and get out.

“They stopped the car and like, shoved their hands in the car and yelled at me to turn off the engine. I’m panicking so I can’t. … I was fumbling with the keys,” Beaudin explained. “When I opened the door they were shouting at me to get on the ground, so when I opened the door, I got on my knees.”

“It was scary,” Travon Lawyer, a sophomore, said. He and another student, Orlando Varges, immediately opened the car doors and ran before adults could grab them. Beaudin and Lee, and a fifth white student who wasn’t available to speak with News 3 Now on Monday, were left behind. Lee and Beaudin said they were forced to the ground as adults claimed they were under a ‘lawful detainment’ and a ‘citizens arrest,’ according to court records. The fifth student, however, was allowed to stand.

“I don’t think any of us thought there was a racial component until the young man stepped forward and said he was not put down, he was not subjected to the same intimidation,” Beaudin’s mother Kiana Beaudin told News 3 Now. “They have all said that they feared for their lives. That should not happen.”

Families file restraining orders against athletic director

Three parents have filed restraining orders against a school official who was connected to the incident and is now on non-disciplinary leave pending an internal investigation. All five students are athletes, and in interviews with News 3 Now, the students expressed fear about playing for athletic director Langkamp in the future.

“I just don’t feel safe with him,” Lawyer said. “If he comes back to school and I see him, obviously have to play sports for him and stuff, I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to do that.”

“If he’d never stopped the car, we’d have been perfectly fine,” Lee said. “He put us in danger.”

In court records, Langkamp told police he was in a different area taking pictures during the incident when he saw a man standing with his legs spread and arms out wide in the road, yelling at a vehicle to stop. He saw Kolar with a “device with a flame coming out of it,” he told police, and heard him yelling at the students to get out of the car and onto their knees.

Langkamp walked over and recognized the students on their knees. He “admitted that he yelled at them a bit and told them to get out of here” and knew Kolar had a flamethrower, court records said, but denied stopping the car or knowing the flamethrower was shooting. He told police he was the reason the incident ended (students, however, credit the ending to Kolar’s daughter who came out of the house and yelled at her dad and the other adults to stop.)

A few of the students’ parents are now calling for his resignation or termination in the wake of the incident.

“He didn’t protect our children as an athletic director,” Lawyer’s mom Sara Smith said. “He works with our children every day…they look up to him.” Since the incident, she added, Lawyer has been very quiet.

Kiana Beaudin said she and her family are losing sleep, anxious about sounds in the night, and checking under their cars in the morning.

“James Langkamp was supposed to be protecting these boys, and he failed to do that,” she said. “I feel he needs to resign or be terminated.”

Both parents said they believe the incident demonstrates a larger pattern of racial issues that have gone ignored in the Baraboo School District, including a past lawsuit from a girl who was called racial slurs, and an event that made nationwide headlines when students appeared to make a Nazi salute. Sara Smith, who is white, said her other African-American daughter as well as Travon have both faced racism and the district has done nothing to punish those involved.

“We need to do better for our students, for our children, for our future,” Beaudin said.

Ho-Chunk Nation leaders call for investigation

In a news release Monday night, tribal leaders from the Ho-Chunk Nation called for the U.S. Department of Justice to get involved because one of the kids involved is a member of the tribe.

“The Ho-Chunk Nation calls upon the United States Department of Justice to investigate the potential conspiracy by these adults to use power and control to illegally detain, intimidate, and threaten these children with the use of a weapon, especially considering the students of color may have been treated differently,” the release read in part.

“We teach our youth to respect adults and people in authority, but abuse of power incidents erodes that trust and respect,” tribal legislator Rep. Conroy Greendeer, Jr., said in the release. “I don’t condone bad behavior by students, but we cannot excuse violent response by adults to a common high school prank.”

Another legislator, Rep. Kristin White Eagle, thanked police for investigating the incident but said tribal leaders “want to be sure the charges fit the crime.”

“This bias incident has a profound affect [sic] on these kids and their families,” she said. “But it also seeks to unravel a lot of hard work within our community to bridge the cultural divide and build trust.”

This article was first posted to fellow CNN affiliate WISC. It is used here with permission.