An eighth-grade Larose-Cut Off Middle School student who crept through the school’s back door with a loaded gun, fired on a teacher and then turned the gun on himself, has succumbed to his injuries and died Tuesday, police said.

Justin Doucet, 15, was in a coma at Terrebonne General Hospital in critical condition and memorial service is being held Thursday.

“This is an unbelievable tragedy for the Doucet family and the entire community,” said Craig Webre, Lafourche parish sheriff. Officials are helping students at the middle school to cope with Doucet’s death and Webre said that Doucet’s family decided to donate his organs to help others.

“His heart saved one child, his liver, another and there’s no telling how many others will be assisted because of the family’s very difficult choice. The police said that Doucet, on May 18 armed with a .25-caliber pistol, walked into a classroom at the school around 9 a.m. on May 18 demanded that everyone get on the ground, Peters said. But no one moved. Doucet then raised the pistol in the teacher’s direction and squeezed the trigger, she said, but the gun apparently jammed. He then said, “Hail Marilyn Manson” and fired a shot over the teacher’s head, Peters said. Moments later the boy fled the classroom and into a bathroom across the hall where he shot himself in the head, Peters said.

The police later found his body sprawled on the bathroom floor, dressed in camouflage shorts and his school uniform top.  

The police said they found the gun Doucet used in the shooting at the scene. The police also seized several items from the 15-year-old’s home, including writings and a journal that detailed his plan, according to a statement released on Tuesday by the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office.

The police did not give specific details about the boy’s writing, just that it was “filled with hate.”

“Nothing on the walls or directly in view would suggest or give any evidence that he was combating whatever demons he was battling,” Sheriff Craig Webre said in the statement, describing Doucet’s bedroom as neat and clean.  “It was meant to be read and he meant for the police to recover it.”

Webre continued: “Surely if someone had read those diaries, surely they would have reported something.”

The school is in Larose, about 45 miles southwest of New Orleans.

Stethen Cheramie, whose daughter Macey, a seventh-grader, was in the class where the shooting occurred, said he is still trying to make sense of what he described as an “overwhelming” situation for children to deal with.

“As a parent, you don’t know what to say,” Cheramie said in a phone interview a day after the shooting. “But as a parent, you also forget how strong children are. We talked and we hugged. The whole thing is overwhelming for her – she’s only 12.”

Cheramie said that while his daughter and so many others have been shaken by the shooting, he is satisfied with how law enforcement and school officials have handled the situation. However, he said that he thinks more security measures need to be taken at the school.

“We have metal detectors that are used when we are tipped off,” said Floyd Benoit, spokesman for the Lafourche Parish School District.  “There are hand-held detectors at the schools at all times, but are not used every day.”

Metal detectors were not in use the day of the shooting, he said.

The school district,, has about 40 hand-held detectors, for the 30 schools across the parish, that are used by school resource officers on a case by case basis, but not always at entry points to the schools, Benoit said. There are also 11 portable standing metal detectors that are rotated between schools in the parish. Two alternative schools for students who have been expelled from other schools in the district have standing metal detectors at all times, Benoit said.

Benoit said the school board will examine how frequently metal detectors are used in the school. “I’m almost sure there will be discussions on where we go from here and the use of metal detectors,” Benoit said. “We are a rural small-knit community- the schools are in a lot of ways the center of activity in the community.” 

The day after the shooting attendance at the middle school was down by more than half from its 500 students, Benoit said.

In an effort to comfort distressed students, the school has made a number of counseling services available at the school.

Security has also been increased at the school, with the installation of three portable standing metal detectors positioned at exits around the school, according to Peters. She said the measures will remain in place until today, which is the last day of school.