Bullied Michigan 8th grader dead after shooting himself in school bathroom

An eighth grader at Davidson Middle School in Southgate Michigan is dead after shooting himself in one of the school's boys bathrooms. According to Detroit's Fox 2 News, the teen was found and rushed to Oakwood Southshore Medical Center where he died of his injuries.

Shortly after 9:00 a.m., school officials placed the school building on lockdown and sent a message to parents asking them to come get their children because of a "medical emergency."

Fox 2's Maurielle Lue reported that the boy shot himself in the head with a .40-caliber handgun. A student (pictured above) who knew the boy said his classmates were shocked and saddened by the news.

"It's really sad because a lot of kids knew him and we never thought that he would do something like that," he said as news helicopter rotors roared overhead. "We all believe that he was bullied."

The boy told Lue that he and his classmates have taken school courses on bullying and were making an effort to stop bulling by their peers.

"I guess it wasn't enough for some people," he said.

A study published in October 2012 in the Archives of Pediatric Medicine reported that bullied children and teens are 2.4 times more likely to commit suicide or entertain suicidal thoughts than other kids. The study called on educators and health providers to perform "victimization assessments among all youth who are believed to be at risk for suicidal ideation."

The likelihood that children or teens will have suicidal thoughts increases significantly if the child has been sexually assaulted or subjected to other forms of mistreatment by peers, parents or caregivers.

"Findings also showed substantial effects of polyvictimization (exposure to 7 or more individual types of victimization in the past year), with polyvictims almost 6 times more likely to report suicidal ideation," wrote the study's authors, a team from the University of New Hampshire led by sociologist Dr. Heather Turner.

Classes at Davidson Middle School were canceled for the remainder of Thursday. Currently, it's unknown whether classes will resume on Friday.

Watch video about this story, embedded below via Detroit's Fox 2 News: