The scene plays out on a video from a surveillance camera at Socastee High shot on Sept. 21, the 14-year-old's attorney, Russell Long, said. Such kicks were so frequent, Christian didn't mention the incident until weeks later when Long asked him about it after seeing the video.
Christian had been scheduled for a detention hearing before a family court judge on Friday, but it was put off until Dec. 17, when a judge will review psychological evaluations and determine if the teen should remain in the custody of the state Department of Juvenile Justice in Columbia, where he has been held since his arrest following the 2 p.m. Sept. 21 incident in which police say he went to the office of Socastee High School resource officer Erik Karney with the weapons.
Karney and the teen struggled after the teen showed he had a gun and during the altercation the student shot at Karney, according to Horry County police. Karney was not struck by the shot, but was injured by shrapnel when the bullet hit the wall. Karney took Christian into custody, and police later found the pipe bombs inside the backpack.
Traci and Jamie Helms spoke on Friday to The Sun News, which had not identified Christian or his parents because he's been charged as a juvenile, and is doing so now because his parents wanted to speak out. They said they want others to know what happened to their son, in the hope that it can prevent future incidents.
"We have felt a tremendous amount of guilt since this happened. What could we have seen? What could we have done?" Traci Helms said. "If we'd only known about the bullying; if we'd only known more."
The couple sat side by side at a conference table in their lawyer's office, their shoulders slumped as they talked about the events leading up to Christian's arrest and their lives since that day.
They'd dealt with some bullying issues involving their son when he was in middle school, but he stopped talking about it and told them everything was fine, they said. The couple later learned the bullying stopped for about a year, but resumed when the teen entered high school this year.
The Helmses and Long said they have documented evidence, including the video of the incident at the school, of the teen being bullied by bigger, older classmates.
"Christian's plan was to die on Sept. 21," Long said Friday. "Thank God for Officer Karney, who saved Christian's life on that day. Otherwise, we would be talking about him in the past tense and bullying. Thankfully we can talk about him in the present tense and carrying on the cause against bullying."
Bullied for years
The red-haired Christian is now 5 feet tall and weighs barely 100 pounds, his parents said. He first told them about being bullied when he was in elementary school. At first he was called names, like leprechaun, because of his red hair, and other students threw paper balls at him.
"He wanted to dye his hair and we reiterated that his hair color was handsome and people were different. He's quiet like his dad," Traci Helms said. "He always made good grades and the teachers said good things about him. He had the same teenage problems that other parents had, like he'd forget to feed the dog or take out the trash."
The incidents continued and their severity increased as the teen moved into sixth and seventh grades at Forestbrook Middle School, according to Long and his parents. Christian endured being slapped in the face, kicked in the backside and being spat on, Long said.
The boys involved are a year older than Christian, he said. Their parents are aware of the incidents.
"We've learned that sixth and seventh grades were torment for him. In eighth grade, his grades went up and he had a great year. It stopped and the boys were gone," Long said. "Then in leading to ninth grade ... he was scared to death to go to [Socastee High] school because those boys are at that school."
The video from September shows the boy kicking Christian just below the backpack in which the weapons were stashed, he said. The Sun News has requested copies of the videos through the Freedom of Information Act, but school officials and prosecutors declined to release them until the case is decided.
Horry County police charged the teen in juvenile court with attempted murder; possession, threatened or attempted use of weapon of mass destruction for act of terrorism; and possession of a destructive device.
Prosecutors said they plan to petition a family court judge to move the case to circuit court where the teen would be tried as an adult. But Long and his parents said they will fight that motion.
If found guilty of the charges as a juvenile, he can be held for an indeterminate amount of time not to exceed his 21st birthday, Richardson said. As an adult the penalty is up to 30 years in prison for the attempted murder charge; two to 15 years for the bomb making charge and 25 years to life in prison for the weapon of mass destruction charge, she said.
Since being in custody in Columbia, Long said Christian has mentioned he's much happier and he feels safer.
"He is completely well adjusted there. He has not been bullied there. He is so much more comfortable there in custody than he was walking through the hallways of Socastee High School," Long said.
The Helmses have been frequently visiting Christian and working with psychologists in Columbia on his care.
"He's started opening up to us. In working with the psychologist, Christian has started to open up and talk about it. He said he's felt safer there in jail than he did at his high school," Traci Helms said. "We hope he will be tried fairly. He will be punished for the charges he committed and he will stay at DJJ and get the help he needs and he has a chance at a normal life. We will be there to support him."
Family life
Traci and Jamie Helms married when they were 19 and had Christian soon after, their only child.
Traci Helms is from the Upstate. Jamie Helms has lived most of his life in Horry County and graduated from Socastee High School. The family spent weekends camping, riding four-wheelers and motocross bikes.
Christian enjoyed playing video games, was learning to break-dance and had hobbies that included collecting coins and rocks, his parents said.
"This incident is so out of character for him. He was angry and he didn't know how to express it," Traci Helms said. "We will do whatever it takes to get the message out. [Bullying] takes a toll on people, especially children who are growing and insecure. We want to make people aware. He has said he wants other kids to not go through what he went through."
Traci Helms drove Christian to school in the mornings, but he rode the bus home in the afternoons. The teen told his parents about bullying incidents on the school bus and Jamie Helms said he went to school officials and confronted them about it when his son was in sixth and seventh grades.
"Like every father would tell their son to deal with bullies, I told him to punch them as hard as you can in the nose," Jamie Helms said of an incident in sixth grade when Christian was being shoved into lockers.
Christian and the boy fought and school officials disciplined both boys. Jamie Helms said he told school officials his son was defending himself. He said he felt it was unfair that they'd told him they could do nothing about bullying allegations unless an altercation occurred between the boys, and when it did, Christian was disciplined.
"Seventh grade was when it really got worse, especially on the school bus. He came home and the whole side of his face was blood red. He didn't want to tell me what had happened, I had to threaten to whip him to get him to tell me," Jamie Helms said.
Jamie Helms said he confronted school officials about the incident twice before the boy involved was removed from the school bus.
That is when the Helmses suspect things got worse for Christian because he stopped talking about being bullied. He became withdrawn, but Traci Helms said she thought it was typical teenage behavior because he started to show an interest in girls.
"That was the last time Christian told us anything was going on. We'd ask him 'Have these boys had stopped hitting on you?' and he'd say 'It's fine,'" Traci Helms said. "We thought everything was fine. Then he started saying he worried about high school."
The family computer is kept in the living room, and the Helmses monitored Christian's activities online as well as how long he spent on the computer.
"We did things as a family. He was very open," Traci Helms said. "He created the Twitter account and I had no idea. We were in his room. As parents everybody thinks they know what their kid is doing, we tried. We loved him. We wanted good things for him."
Sept. 21
Traci Helms said she was at work in Pawleys Island that afternoon when she heard something had happened at the school. She said she texted her son to see what was going on, but she didn't hear back from him so she called her husband.
Jamie Helms said he started calling friends and learned from a police officer friend that his son had been involved in an incident at the school. Jamie Helms went to the school and called his wife.
"Jamie called me and said he was on the way to the school and he told me that Christian was involved and that his handgun was missing," Traci Helms said, her voice quivering and her eyes wet. "I was in shock. I was scared. I couldn't believe that anything like that. ... I'm still in shock. I can't believe anything like this has happened."
Staring at the conference table, Jamie Helms said Christian "has a very good heart, but his mind wasn't in the right place" that day.
"The whole thing was a shock," he said. "She is one of the best mothers anybody can have. She babied him a little too much I thought sometimes, but I was brought up a hard way.
"I was the biggest kid in school and now I had the smallest kid in school," he said. "I wasn't there emotionally for him. I was there to discipline him, which was very rarely. Being a father is the hardest thing I've had to do in my life."
But after the incident, the Helmses learned from Christian's friends that they had witnessed him being pushed around and bullied by the older, bigger boys.
"I see now that our school system is taking action, but bullying has almost become a plague over our schools," Jamie Helms said, referring to a school hotline set up this month.
"Parents need to talk to their children now before it gets too late. It's hard to pry it out of them, but you have to do it. ... The children need to know it's time to stop being scared and talk to their parents," Jamie Helms said. "Their friends know it's going on and if one of them had spoken up we wouldn't be in this situation."
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