Shooting rampage kills 8 in France

Posted 8:54AM on Wednesday 27th March 2002 ( 23 years ago )

NANTERRE, FRANCE - A man calmly opened fire at a city council meeting in suburban Paris early Wednesday, methodically killing eight people and wounding 19 others before finally being restrained and shouting: ``Kill me, kill me!'' A shocked Prime Minister Lionel Jospin called the shooting rampage ``a case of furious dementia,'' and one presidential candidate called it an ``American-style byproduct.'' The suspect, Richard Durn, 33, is a local man who witnesses said frequently attended council meetings. Police said he used two automatic pistols and a revolver in the attack. Witnesses said the attacker opened fire without a word, shooting with both hands at about 40 people who were drawing on their coats after the meeting ended at about 1:15 a.m. About 50 shells were scattered across the room. ``I thought it was a joke at first,'' said Samuel Rijik, a municipal official who was at the meeting. ``Some people thought it was firecrackers.'' He said the shooter was firing two weapons at once. ``I crawled under my table and a bullet went through my jacket. I thought I was hit,'' Rijik said. The assailant was subdued by other people in the room after one official threw a chair at him, authorities said. That official was seriously wounded when the suspect started firing again with his free hand. No police were present at the time of the attack. Nanterre mayor Jacqueline Fraysse said that when the suspect was finally restrained, he shouted out: ``Kill me, kill me!'' The suspect made no coherent statement after being taken into custody, police said. The rampage did not appear politically motivated; both leftist and rightist municipal officials were killed. Durn was described as a member of an ecologist movement. ``He was somebody opposed to the directives of the city hall,'' said Christian Demercaster, a municipal official from the Green Party who said he'd greeted the attacker before the session. He said Durn wasn't a Green Party member. In France, where gun control laws were tightened in 1998, one needs a permit for the weapons used in the attack. Durn has no criminal record and had a permit for his guns, which he'd bought in 1997 and used for recreational shooting, prosecutors said. His permit came from a gun association. Hours after the attack, weeping family members arrived to identify the bodies, which remained inside the city hall in Nanterre, a middle-class neighborhood near a business district of western Paris. The flag above flew at half staff. Of the 19 wounded, five or six were in grave condition, and the rest were more moderately wounded. Others were treated for shock, authorities said. President Jacques Chirac, who met with grieving family members, called the events ``a completely unimaginable drama.'' Jospin rushed to the scene in the early morning darkness. ``It's apparently a case of furious dementia,'' Jospin said. ``A horrifying tragedy that harms democracy - a city council meeting in action.'' One rightist presidential candidate, Alain Madelin, said the event was ``revealing'' of the state of rising crime in France - a key issue in the upcoming presidential campaign - and compared it to past events in the United States. ``This American-style byproduct, we wished not to have in France,'' he said. Fraysse, the mayor, said she didn't know the attacker. There had been no heated debate at the meeting and it was ending quietly when the shooting began, she said. ``He had been sitting in the public area. He shot straight in front of him, and then he moved to where the council members were sitting.'' The man had waited until there were only officials and bureaucrats left in the room, she said. ``He said nothing,'' she said. ``It was long. It lasted many minutes.'' The issue of crime is at the top of France's political agenda ahead of the presidential campaign, which begins next month and comes to a final vote May 5. Thousands of police officers held nationwide strikes in December, saying they deserve more pay and better equipment because their jobs have become increasingly risky. The protests started after two officers were shot and killed during an armed robbery in a Paris suburb in October. In October, a masked gunman opened fire in the central French city of Tours, killing four people. In an assault in Switzerland last September, a 57-year-old man opened fire with an assault rifle at a meeting of a state legislature, killing 14 people before killing himself with a handgun.

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