Judge says Katy superintendent was once a 'vicious bully'

KATY, Texas (FOX 26) - When it comes to bullying, the embattled leader of the state's 9th largest school district certainly talks a very good game.

"Dr. Lance Hindt takes bullying very seriously," said Hindt in an August 2016 interview.

Fast forward 18 months and the Katy Superintendent responsible for eradicating student-on-student abuse found himself stunningly accused of brutal bullying in his youth.

"Lance, you were the one who shoved my head in the urinal," said Greg Gay, a junior high classmate who also goes by the name Greg Barrett.

It was an allegation Hindt flatly denied, adding,"Bullying is wrong. It was then and it is today."

But others, who knew the teenage Lance Hindt, are telling a m uch different story.

"He was a vicious bully. He was a thug. He was a wealthy thug, but he was a thug," said Judge David Carpenter who presides over a criminal court in the state of Alabama.

Back in 1982 he attended Taylor High School with Lance Hindt and says he avoided being his victim, but bore witness to the football star's predatory behavior.

"He was physically threatening some of my teammates, just menacing them, standing over them and eventually started throwing weight plates at them, 25-pound weight plates at them," said Carpenter.

Carpenter says the bullying of weaker classmates by Hindt was frightening, intense and near constant.

"He liked to brag about beating up other people and at one point he even bragged about beating up a police officer," said Carpenter.

After reading Hindt's public denial, Carpenter felt compelled to speak out, saying it's simply about justice and the truth.  

"I thought he might be in prison somewhere based on the way he behaved in high school," said Carpenter.

While Superintendent Hindt has declined multiple requests to answer the allegations, FOX 26 preserved this insight from the 2016 interview.

"In my experiences with bullying, there's usually two sides to a story and until you get both sides of the story you can't really determine fact or fiction on a bullying situation," said Hindt.

There well may well be another side to tell, but it's a story Hindt has thus far refused to tell.