Louisiana School Shooting = Boy Dies

Update:
Justin Doucet, an eighth-grader at the school, died shortly before 10 a.m. Saturday morning, May 23, at Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma.


In the town Cut Off, Louisiana, Sheriff Craig Webre says a middle student shot himself in the head after allegedly firing a shot at a teacher inside a Lafourche Parish school. (La fourche = the fork.)

The shooting happened Monday morning, May 18, 2009, at Larose-Cutoff Middle School. (La rose = the pink.)

Sheriff Webre says the 15-year-old boy fired one shot into the classroom but didn't hit anyone. The 8th grader fired a shot into a ceiling. CNN says the student apparently was aiming at a teacher. The student then ran into a boys' bathroom and shot himself in the head.

The student was rushed to a hospital and a sheriff's spokeswoman says he is listed in critical condition. The school was locked down following the shooting.

"I see everyone is wearing bullet proof vests and a helicopter is circling overhead," a driver passing the school told WWL radio. Students were being taken to a nearby VFW hall.

Deputies did not release the name of the student, according to the local news station WAFB.

+++LA update
Justin Doucet's friends saw him as a quiet, friendly kid — they had no idea what macabre fascinations apparently lurked in a skeleton-adorned journal and a notebook labeled his "deadly diary."

The day after the eighth-grader shot himself in the head with a tiny pistol in a school bathroom, authorities displayed journals Tuesday that detailed his plans to shoot four students and his disappointment that he wouldn't have enough bullets left to kill a police officer.

Authorities offered no motive for his desire to kill other students, and ultimately he only hurt himself. He fired a shot over a teacher's head but didn't hit her. No one else was injured.

Doucet, who remained in a coma Tuesday, was apparently fascinated by the Columbine High School shootings in 1999 in Littleton, Colo., when two teens went on a rampage that left 12 high school students and a teacher dead.

"The writing shows a very troubled person who has some anger issues," Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said on Tuesday. "He was fascinated with the Antichrist and the end of the world."

A small journal with a black cloth cover decorated with tiny skeletons and a spiral notebook labeled "Deadly Diary II" in pencil were in Doucet's camouflage backpack, Webre said.

Among the items in the backpack was a pencil drawing of himself, with the words "Disturbed Mind" next to the head, wearing a shirt with the rock band AC/DC's logo and their song "Highway to Hell" written on it. He also is shown wearing camouflage pants and combat boots.

Underneath the picture were the words "The LCO Gunman," referring to the Larose-Cut Off Middle School, where Doucet donned camouflage pants, went into Jessica Plaisance's classroom, and fired a shot. Then he went into the restroom and shot himself.

His .25-caliber, nickel-plated pistol had two spent shells and three bullets in it, Webre said.

The young man, who had no disciplinary problems at school and hadn't been in trouble with the law, gave a detailed description of what he hoped to do Monday, Webre said, including the date and time.

Doucet bemoaned his lack of more firepower, which would keep him from shooting a police officer. He had apparently taken the pistol from his father's house during the weekend and had no additional bullets, Webre said.

The plan was to shoot a sixth-grader, seventh-grader, and two eighth-graders then take his own life, Webre said. No specific targets were named, and authorities do not believe anyone else was involved or even knew of Doucet's plan.

A search of his home turned up a clipping about Columbine, Webre said.

About 500 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders attend the school in a rural community of about 7,000 people, some 70 miles southwest of New Orleans.

The school reopened on Tuesday with about half the students in attendance. Three walkthrough metal detecters were set up at the entrances. Webre was not sure if they would be permanently installed.


++++

Furthermore, the same afternoon as the LA shooting, a man loading a rifle was arrested in the alley near Portland High School, Portland, Maine. There is late breaking news, also, of a college-age person being shot on the Harvard Campus around 5:00 PM Monday, May 18, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The young man who was shot on the campus of Harvard University Monday evening has died.

He's identified as 21-year-old Justin Cosby of Cambridge, a former student at Salem State College and a graduate of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said Cosby was shot once in a stairwell inside an annex to Kirkland House, a Harvard dormitory.

It's an area that's locked and can only be accessed by students. But investigators say no Harvard students were involved in the shooting.