A 19-year-old charged with firing a sawed-off shotgun in a UW-Madison parking lot Wednesday night and using the gun to beat the owner of Club Majestic, 115 King St., appeared for the first time in a jailhouse courtroom Monday.
According to District Attorney Mike Verveer, Jason Hall fired the gun after a bar-time fight at Ian's Pizza, 319 N. Frances St., spilled over to a parking ramp next to Witte Hall. Hall then hit Club Majestic owner Nick Schiavo in the head with the butt of the gun, a blow that landed Schiavo in the hospital, Verveer said.
Verveer said it was a miracle\ that nobody was killed during the violence, which involved several others who were not arrested.
Brian Brophy, Hall's lawyer, maintained that Hall was acting in self-defense when he fired the shotgun. Brophy said Hall's group was actually much smaller than Schiavo's, who he said attacked Hall and his friends in the parking lot. According to Brophy, Hall fired the gun to stop the fight from getting out of hand.
""This is a far cry from the wanton violence that Mr. Verveer is describing,"" Brophy said, adding that Hall had no criminal history prior to last week's incident. He did not explain why Hall hit Schiavo in the head with the gun.
Brophy went on to describe Hall as a teenager from a single-parent household struggling to make ends meet. Hall has a job at Boston Store and recently moved into his first apartment, Brophy said.
A woman who asked to be identified as ""a family friend"" of Hall said she too was surprised by Hall's involvement in the late-night incident. She noted his lack of any criminal history and his reputation as a good person.
""This is a total shock,"" the woman said.
Hall might have avoided arrest had he not returned to the scene of the shooting to retrieve the shotgun early Thursday morning. After fleeing the scene on foot, Hall got a friend to take him to the bushes near the parking lot where he had hidden the gun. After arriving, however, Hall was immediately arrested and taken into custody.\
