School shooting shocks Larose community

A 15-year-old student at Larose-Cut Off Middle School is in critical, but stable condition in the Intensive Care Unit at Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma after shooting himself in the head Monday on school grounds.

According to Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre, the suicide attempt happened around 9 a.m., moments after the eighth grader – whose name has not been released – pointed the loaded weapon at an English teacher, then fired an errant shot over her head toward the classroom ceiling.

Webre said the teen was in the class only a few minutes before retreating to the adjacent bathroom and turning the gun on himself. No one besides the student was injured during the shooting.

The gun, a .25-caliber, nickel-plated semi-automatic, belonged to the shooter’s father, Webre said.

Investigators did not say why the boy selected that particular classroom or what motives he may have had for attempting to kill himself.

Webre said a journal was found inside the injured teen’s backpack. Attached to the journal were two pieces of loose-leaf paper that detectives said contained a note detailing his attack plan at the school and his intent to kill himself.

“Those papers contain three things: what we believe is a plan and suicide note, a drawing of the way he would dress and a crudely drawn layout or blueprint of the area that he intended to occupy,” Webre said. “The student changed his school khakis to camouflage pants, which resembled the picture he drew in his journal.”

According to the student’s note, he first intended to go to art class. “Then ask to go to the restroom. Without him knowing, I will take my bag,” the shooter scrawled in the explicative-laced note. “Go to the restroom and check if people are in there. Go to the last stall and gear up.”

He named the teacher’s classroom in which he intended to start his attack. Although he indicated in his missive that he intended to kill others, Webre said the handgun was loaded with only four bullets – one of which was fired over the teacher’s head and the second of which struck the shooter.

“Everything in the letter suggests that the individual acted completely alone with one specific purpose and did not have an accomplice,” Webre said. “It was isolated to this particular school.”

The sheriff said the teen has no prior juvenile criminal history. No school disciplinary actions have been filed during his three years at Larose-Cut Off Middle, according to school officials.

Webre said the teen made references to being an outcast; however, the sheriff said there is nothing in his school records to suggest that. Lafourche Parish School Super-intendent Jo Ann Matthews said the teen was a good performer.

“We really don’t want to over-speculate,” Webre said, “but the letter indicates that his intention was to kill people. And he does make some biblical reference to antichrist. And there was a reference to Marilyn Manson in the journal that we saw.”

Webre said the teen’s attire the only variation between what was written in the his notes and the day’s events. His sketch included a T-shirt featuring hard rock band AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” album cover. When school officials discovered the teen lying wounded on the bathroom stall floor, he was still wearing his Larose-Cut Off Middle School white shirt and camouflage pants.

“Both of his parents were completely surprised,” Webre said of the morning’s shootings. “His mother said he was a little anxious this morning and when she asked him why, he attributed it to taking the LEAP test and the scores coming.”

Search warrants were expected to be executed at the boy’s home to look for additional evidence such as more documents and computer-related materials.

Around 3 p.m. Monday, Webre said investigators conducted a locker-by-locker search with canine officers throughout the school. Students were also directed to leave their backpacks at the school, and the dogs searched for weapons bag by bag, the sheriff said.

Crime specialists with the state Attorney General’s Office and computer forensic experts rushed to the scene to help with the investigation.

Webre said late Monday that, once the investigation was complete, the school was turned over to the school superintendent and Larose-Cut Off Middle School Principal Matt Hodson.

The LCO Emergency Evacuation Plan Lauded

School and law enforcement officials stressed during the afternoon press conference that the school was safe and that parents had no reason to worry about their children’s safety. Police declared the school safe around 2:30 p.m. It was expected to be open Tuesday morning with added security, Matthews said.

The school shooting was the first in Lafourche Parish in recent memory, officials said.

“This is a unique situation,” Hodson said. “It has never happened before. This is a safe environment. This is a great school where great things happen. And that should be publicized more often.”

Larose-Cut Off Middle School serves approximately 500 students between grades six and eight, and has approximately 60 faculty and staff members. Neighboring Larose Upper Elementary School, which was also evacuated, has approximately 350 students.

School officials locked down the school following the shooting during second period Monday. Students were searched for weapons as they left the school.

The students, escorted by school faculty, walked single-file to the VFW Hall about a half-mile behind the school where parents were allowed to pick up their children.

The teacher in the room where the errant shot was fired immediately notified the principal and put the class on lockdown as the shooter fled. Hodson also responded immediately, Webre said.

The sheriff’s office arrived on the scene about five to 10 minutes after the initial 911 call was received. A D.A.R.E officer was in another part of the school doing a presentation when the first gunshot was heard.

“(The school) went through the lockdown procedures and went through every aspect to make sure that this was an isolated event and no more potential students might be involved,” Webre said. “They did not discover anything, but that it was isolated to this one individual.”

The students were taken to a processing area Monday where a crisis debriefing team talked to them before releasing them to their parents or guardians.

“I complimented the school for responding to this first-ever shooting situation,” Webre said. “The plan that the school has is an excellent plan and it was executed superbly. The faculty and staff reacted exactly as they should have. Interestingly, the school practices very frequently, from our discussion with the teacher and the students.”

“There was an upcoming exercise,” he added. “Initially, they thought this was an exercise until the class realized that the individual was, in fact, serious.”

“The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office has been a hand-in-hand partner with the school system,” Matthews said. “The sheriff and his staff are here constantly. They are always doing drills and getting the students ready for this day.”

Floyd Benoit, communication specialist for the Lafourche Parish School Board, said the school system has been constantly reevaluating its security plan since the Columbine shooting.

“All school systems across the country have been under a different watch,” he said. “We are constantly having meetings and constantly updating the plan. We have two PASS sites that have metal detectors that are on all the time, and the students and the faculty have to walk through them.”

All of Lafourche’s public schools have access to hand-held metal detectors. However, they are not required to use them on a daily basis. Larose-Cut Off Middle had not used the metal detector as students arrived Monday, Benoit said.

Reaction was fearful among students, parents

Hodson said as news of the shooting spread, students were crying. By the time the sheriff’s office cleared the school, the general mood lightened, he said.

The hours parents were kept away from the school, however, were far more frantic. Many lined the street leading to the middle school before Larose-Cut Off Middle staff began phoning parents alerting them that school would be closed early.

Michelle Caine, a Cut Off resident, rushed to the school to pick up her nephew, Trevor Randall, who is an eighth grader at the school.

“It’s nerve-racking just standing out here not being able to do anything,” she said.

Rhonda Eschete, also of Cut Off, received a text message from her eighth-grade son, Jacob, notifying her that the school was on lockdown. He didn’t know the extent of the lockdown, she said.

“I texted him back and he told me that he was OK,” Eschete said. “He was too nervous to text for himself, so one of his friends did it for him.”

Counselors were on hand at the VFW Monday where the students waited for their parents. Counselors were expected to return Tuesday and to visit other parish schools.

“We want to let (parents) know that as a school system, we certainly cannot take into account what issues students may bring to school at any given time,” Matthews said. “However, as you have heard from the sheriff, our faculty and staff members are trained on active shooter drills and definitely took their job very seriously. I am very proud of them in what they did in executing everything.”

Authorities quickly evacuate students Monday moments after a 15-year-old student fired a weapon in a classroom and then shot himself in the head inside a school restroom.