Boy wrote threatening note before school shooting

Published: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 8:21 a.m. MDT
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LAROSE, La. (AP) — A middle-school student who fired a gunshot at a teacher in a classroom and then shot himself left a handwritten journal and an apparent suicide note that described his intention to kill other people, authorities said.

The eighth-grade student, who has not been identified by authorities, was in critical condition early Tuesday after undergoing surgery following Monday's shooting. No one else was injured.

Afterward, investigators found a profanity-laced note that said "U all will die."

"The letter indicated his intention was to kill people," Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said.

The student left during homeroom Monday morning, a fellow student said. He went to the bathroom and changed from the khaki uniform pants the school requires to a pair of camouflaged pants. He then stormed into the classroom across the hall from the restroom — gun in hand, said Coley Gaspard, 14, who was in the room.

Investigators believe the boy chose the room because of its closeness to the restroom, not because he had any agenda concerning the teacher or students.

He tried to shoot the teacher, Webre said, but the gun did not fire.

Webre said the boy made an adjustment, then fired over the teacher's head. As he left the room he asked one of the students to go with him, but left alone when the youngster remained seated.

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He apparently returned to the bathroom and shot himself within minutes, Webre said.

The young man got the gun, a .25-caliber, nickel-plated semiautomatic, from his father's house during the weekend, Webre said.

The school has both standing and handheld metal detectors, but they aren't used all the time and weren't in use Monday. The school was scheduled to reopen Tuesday with enhanced security and several counselors on hand.

At another school about 100 miles away, deputies found an unloaded handgun in the backpack of a 15-year-old boy Monday.

Authorities in East Baton Rouge told The Advocate newspaper that a teacher at a private school for grades 4 through 12 reported suspicions that the student had a weapon. The student, who was not named, was taken into juvenile detention on a count of carrying a weapon on school property.

The Larose school, with about 500 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders, is in a rural community of about 7,000 people, some 45 miles southwest of New Orleans.

Webre said the boy had no disciplinary problems at school and hadn't been in trouble with the law.

"He makes reference to himself as an outcast," Webre said, referring to the journal. "But nothing in his record reflects that."

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Bill Haber, Associated Press

Police and emergency officials arrive at Larose-Cut Off Middle School in Larose, La., Monday. Authorities say a student shot himself in the head at the middle school after he fired at a teacher and missed.

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