Sheriff: Four were targeted

• By JOHN A. COLVIN
• Advocate River parishes bureau
• Published: May 20, 2009 - Page: 1B

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

LAROSE — Based on excerpts from one of his journals, an accused teenage shooter planned to kill four classmates and himself, Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said Tuesday.

In a notebook labeled “Deadly Diary II,” Justin Paul Doucet, 15, outlined his plan for a shooting rampage Monday morning at Larose-Cut Off Middle School, writing it as an after-the-fact explanation for police, Webre said.

“He was specific on the date, time and location,” Webre said. “He indicated he intended to kill four and also expressed a desire to kill a police officer. … He wrote of a desire to have greater firepower to kill a cop.”

Doucet, an eighth-grader at the school, did not kill anyone but shot in the direction of a seventh-grade teacher, Jessica Plaisance, authorities reported.

He then shot himself.

The teen remained in a coma Tuesday, breathing on his own, while listed in critical condition at Terrebonne General Hospital in Houma, Webre said.

The sheriff said the 25-caliber bullet entered through Doucet’s lower jaw and exited from his upper head.

Monday’s incident began shortly after 9 a.m., when Doucet changed into camouflage clothing in a school restroom and armed himself with a .25-caliber, nickel-plated semiautomatic pistol taken from his father’s house.

The student entered Plaisance’s class and tried to shoot at a whiteboard, but the gun did not fire, the sheriff said.

Webre said Doucet made an adjustment, then fired above the teacher’s head. and told another student to leave the room with him, but left alone when the other boy remained seated.

Doucet returned to the restroom where he previously had changed, and shot himself, Webre said.

The “Deadly Dairy” notebook, a journal, and a self-portrait drawing were found inside Doucet’s book bag in the school restroom, Webre said.

The pistol, loaded with two rounds in the cartridge clip and a third inside the chamber, was found in Doucet’s hand, said Webre, adding that a total of two shots had been fired from the gun.