And just as in America, France's versions of rampage/spree/mass murderers have followed a time-honored script, as though they have all attended the same Rampage Killer Training Academy. With a few minor variations, that script generally reads something like this: a man described as a loner (though the facts frequently contradict that description) suddenly explodes in an orgy of violence, gunning down - in a coldly professional, emotionless manner - as many people as possible, before turning his guns on himself – thereby preempting any sort of a meaningful investigation of the crime and ensuring that the 'evidence' in the case will never be aired in open court.
Richard Durn apparently had read a copy of that script. At 1:15 AM the morning of March 27 - after sitting in the public gallery of Nanterre's city council chambers through some six hours of tedious local political wrangling, and after waiting until all other visitors had cleared out - Durn approached the gathered group of forty or so elected officials without saying a word and opened fire with a dizzying barrage of semi-automatic handgun fire, shooting his initial victims in the back. (24) "The attack was," according to the BBC's Paris correspondent, "clearly prepared in advance." (25)
When it was all over, eight local councillors lay dead and another nineteen were wounded (early reports claimed that as many as 30 were wounded). The council chambers were littered with dozens of spent shell casings and, according to a Paris fire brigade spokesman, Captain Laurent Vibert, "There are at least 50 bullet impacts in the council chamber. According to our first reports, he used at least five ammunition clips." (26)
The mass murder was - according to the local mayor, who survived the rampage - "conducted with clinical precision." (27) Press reports were littered with descriptions of a preternaturally calm, emotionally-detached killer.
The Irish Times commented that: "Eyewitnesses were struck by Mr Durn’s calm, methodical manner." (28) The BBC reported that: "The gunman who opened fire on a council meeting in Paris acted methodically and calmly, working his way around the room as he shot his victims, witnesses say." (29) One councillor/witness told the Guardian that: "He was shooting at anything that moved … but he was completely calm." (30)
Other witnesses noted that "Mr Durn did not utter a word while spraying the room with bullets." (31) One unidentified official told the BBC that Durn "was very calm. He didn’t look like a crazy person at all." (32) Christian Brunet, a councillor/witness, told the Independent: “He didn’t say a word. He must have used three or four magazines. He had a second pistol in his belt. It was like being in a horror film. He shot the councillors in the front row, coldly, one by one." (33)
It was a performance that seemed to borrow heavily from The Terminator: "Witnesses say the man had two or three guns, and was shooting with both hands at once … Others described how he calmly reloaded his weapons before carrying on." (34) Two of those guns, which Durn was apparently firing simultaneously, were Glock 9mm semi-automatics.
Durn was eventually overpowered – but not without considerable effort. He seemed to be oblivious to attempts by witnesses/victims to stop his rampage: "At least one councillor reportedly threw a chair at the gunman to try to knock him to the ground. Another person tried to wrestle him to the floor. But witnesses said the man never stopped shooting." (35)
One can almost picture Ahhnuld calmly reloading and robotically firing with both hands even as chairs and would-be attackers bounce off of him.
Several councillors ultimately braved the barrage of bullets to disarm and contain Durn. As they did so, the well-armed Durn pulled out yet a third gun, "a .357 magnum handgun which he fired at those trying to overpower him." (36)
Had he not been stopped, Durn's performance was apparently scheduled to include his own suicide as the final act – most likely to be performed with the .357 he had tucked in his belt and which he produced as soon as he realized that the show was drawing to a close. After being overpowered, he reportedly screamed "kill me, kill me." (37) It was later reported that: "Police said Durn admitted during questioning that he planned to kill himself after gunning down the councillors." (38)
Most press accounts portrayed Durn as the proverbial 'deranged loner' – noting that he was unemployed, unmarried and still living with his mother, and that he had a long history of mental illness. LeMonde, for instance, reported that: "He did not have friends, nor a known girlfriend, and he lived with his mother." (39) But Durn did in fact have political connections, and was well-known within the council chambers where the shootings took place.
One witness told the BBC that: "He comes to all the council meetings and had no motive to do this." (40) Other witnesses reported that "some councillors had chatted with him before the debate on the local budget." (41) The Irish Times held that not only did Durn speak "to several of the men and women he was about to murder ... he joked with some of them." (42) Some of the councillors in the room that night had served alongside of Durn in the local chapter of the League of Human Rights, an organization for which Durn had at one time served as treasurer. (43)
Most media accounts also presented the mass murder as a motiveless, random act of violence. Police referred to it as "motiveless dementia," (44) while prime minister Lionel Jospin spoke of "a case of furious dementia." (45) The Independent though talked to some eyewitnesses who said that "Durn selected his targets. They said he seemed to know precisely which councillors he wanted to kill, starting with the Greens and Communists." (46) A later report by Reuters claimed that Durn had “intended to kill only the Communist mayor, according to a confession published by LeParisien newspaper yesterday." (47)
If Durn's intent was to kill leftists, then he certainly chose the right place to launch his attack. There is certainly no shortage of "Greens and Communists" in Nanterre, which has been described as a "staunchly communist blue-collar suburb" (48) located in "the so-called ‘Red Belt’ of left-wing municipalities surrounding the capital." (49) The Independent offered a bleak description of Nanterre as "a neat, soulless, working-class enclave." (50)
Durn himself was described in most press reports as a leftist, though at least one journalist commented on the fact that his supposed leftist leanings were contradicted by his well-documented fascination with guns. Nevertheless, he apparently registered with the Socialist Party in 1995 before switching to the Green Party in 2001; that same year, he joined the League of Human Rights. (51)
Beyond that, the details of Durn's life remain rather murky. He was the son of an immigrant mother whom he lived with. The identity of his father, interestingly, is said to be unknown. Durn was reportedly highly intelligent and very well educated, with a "history degree and a masters in political sciences." (52) LeMonde reported that, at school, "he was exceptionally gifted, so much so that he was bored in class." (53) The Guardian concurred, noting that he was: "Considered brilliant at school." (54)
Despite his intelligence and academic prowess, Durn appears to have an almost non-existent employment history and he was unemployed at the time of the shootings. For the past four years, he has spent part of his time going on what were described as "humanitarian" missions to Bosnia and Kosovo. (55) Bosnia and Kosovo, it should be noted, are the focus of an array of Western intelligence-run covert operations, as well as being the source for the military-style guns flooding into Europe – guns not unlike the ones wielded by Richard Durn.
How Durn maintained possession of those guns in a country known for having tough gun control laws remains very much a mystery. As Time's European edition noted: "Legally possessing such a weapon is difficult in France," though the magazine purports that: "Durn qualified because he was an active member of a shooting club in a nearby town." (56)
Many press reports echo the claim that Durn was allowed a license for his guns because he was a sport shooter with a membership in a shooting club. Unmentioned in these reports is the fact that the guns owned by Durn were hardly of the sort used by sport shooters. As the Independent correctly noted, the "Glock is a lightweight, hi-tech, automatic pistol used by bodyguards and assassins." (57)
Even if one accepts that these decidedly non-sporting guns were owned for sport shooting, there is still the question of why the guns were not confiscated two years ago, when Durn allowed his license to expire. As Adam Sage wrote in the UK's The Times: "Durn had been allowed to keep the guns that he used in the shootings despite the expiry of his three-year firearms licence in 2000." (58)
The expiration of the license alone should have resulted in the confiscation of the weapons. In addition to that, Durn had exhibited what the L.A. Times described as "a history of ominous behavior." (59) The Times was referring to the fact that, in 1998, Durn had "threatened a psychiatrist with a handgun." (60) And yet, even with this threat to the doctor "at a social security office," his guns still were not confiscated. (61)
There is also the question of why Durn's psychiatric history did not disqualify him from gun ownership. As The Irish Times recounted: "He had been under psychiatric care since 1990, and took the anti-depressant drug Prozac." (62) This is, alas, yet another element of the script that they apparently teach at the Rampage Killer Training Academy; the overwhelming majority of America's spree killers have had a fondness for ingesting so-called 'anti-depressant' drugs.
During his twelve years of psychiatric treatment, Durn had reportedly made two suicide attempts and had on at least one occasion been confined to a mental hospital. France's LeFigaro marveled at how it was that a man with a lengthy psychiatric history, who had already shown himself to be a danger both to himself and to others, and who was knowingly in illegal possession of three weapons which had been unregistered for over two years, had somehow managed to avoid having those weapons seized. (63)
Durn was, notably, never charged with any crime in connection with his armed threat at a government office. It would seem almost as though someone wanted him roaming the streets of France with his mini-arsenal.
* * * * * * * * * *
After being overpowered in the council chambers, Durn was taken into custody by French police. The young man who had previously been joking with his victims - before coldly and methodically gunning them down - was by that time said to be "speaking incoherently." (64) He reportedly told his captors that he felt "very awkward in his skin" (65), as though - perhaps - he felt he had lost control over his actions.
Shortly after 10:00 AM on the morning of March 28 - 33 hours after Durn unleashed a barrage of bullets inside a building described as an ultra-modern, concrete and glass pyramid - the 33-year-old gunman allegedly committed suicide while being questioned in the Quai des Orfevres, described as "the French equivalent of Scotland Yard." (66)
As the Associated Press described it: "Durn was being interrogated in a locked fifth-floor room when he bolted to a closed window, according to [an official police] statement. It said he opened the window and began climbing out." (67) At the time, Durn "was being questioned by two senior officers, a captain and a brigadier, when he was asked to stand up and sign a statement." (68)
According to the official police account: "The two officials tried to stop him by grabbing his legs, but the determination of the suspect, whose body was already mostly out of the window, thwarted that attempt." (69) The police statement also claimed that: "One officer injured his hand trying to haul [Durn] back in." (70) Once out the window, Durn allegedly scurried across the roof and then plunged to his death.
This official story is, needless to say, not without its problems. Questions have been raised about why the suspect was not handcuffed or otherwise restrained, as well as why he wasn't being held in a secure mental facility rather than a jail (strangely enough, the French apparently recognize that the mentally ill should be treated differently than other suspects).
Perhaps the most obvious question raised is exactly how a man being closely monitored by at least two experienced officers had time to get to a window, open it, and then climb through it before anyone had a chance to restrain him. This is an especially troubling question in light of the fact that the window, variously described as a "fanlight" or a "skylight," was quite small and was located 1.6 meters off the floor (slightly more than five feet). (71)
As a leading Parisian lawyer, Jean-Louis Pelletier, commented to The Times: "It is perfectly obvious to everyone that you need time to climb through a skylight." (72) Lucien Batard, the deputy mayor of Nanterre, asked pointedly: "How can you kill yourself at police headquarters? I didn’t think that someone at criminal police headquarters would have so much liberty of movement that he could jump out of a window." (73)
Apparently a number of French citizens didn't think so either. Agence France-Presses reported that the alleged suicide "caused sharp protests, particularly on behalf of the mayor of Nanterre, Jacqueline Fraysse." (74)
There were obvious signs that a struggle had preceded Durn's 'suicide.' The Guardian reported that Durn's body was "missing one shoe and a sock, perhaps as a result of the struggle." (75) LeMonde added that the "clothing of Richard Durn was, moreover, drawn backwards." (76) These signs of struggle were universally attributed to the officers' alleged efforts to thwart Durn's suicide, though they could just as easily have been the result of Durn's captors' efforts to assist in his 'suicide.'
John Lichfield wrote in the Independent that Durn's timely suicide assured that "the massacre in the suburban council chamber may never be fully explained." (77) Just as, one might note, the death while in police custody of that most famous of 'deranged loners,' Lee Harvey Oswald, assured that the shootings in Dallas would never be fully explained.
Mayor Fraysse observed that “there will be no trial. The families will not know. They had a right to know." (78) Indeed they did, as did the families of the victims of so many of America's rampage killers who have self-destructed before their stories could be told.
John Lichfield wrote in the Independent that Durn "joins a long list of mass killers, including ... Mark Barton, a day trader in Atlanta who killed his family and then nine others at his office in 1999, James Huberty who killed 21 people in a McDonald's restaurant in San Diego in 1984, and Charles Whitman who shot dead 16 people from a tower at the University of Texas in 1966." (79)
None of these men, who were notably all Americans, survived to stand trial. The families of their victims are still waiting to hear what really motivated their murderous rampages. There is some indication that at least one of these legendary mass murderers, Charles Whitman, had received intelligence training while serving as a Marine. (80)
It doesn't seem entirely out of line to ponder whether Richard Durn was a covert intelligence operative. While hard evidence is lacking, there is a circumstantial case to be made: his murky family history, sketchy employment records, documented political connections, questionable leftist credentials, inexplicably lax treatment by law enforcement officials, and mysterious sojourns to the Balkans all point in that direction.
Time proclaimed that: "Last week's mass murder of eight city councilors in a Paris suburb … set France searching for political meaning in a fundamentally senseless act." (81) But was it a senseless act, or was it an overtly political act? Aren't all 'rampage' killings, in the final analysis, political acts? They certainly, at the very least, are exploited for political gain.
Durn's shooting rampage is expected to have very specific political consequences, which were spelled out in an April 3 report from the BBC. Even while claiming that in "normal circumstances, of course, a massacre by a disturbed individual would play no part in a general debate on crime" (a dubious claim at best), reporter Sheila Bartner wrote that: "But when Richard Durn carried out his murderous attack, he may have inadvertently done more than unleash grief and tragedy in this pleasant Paris suburb. It is just possible he has intervened decisively in the French presidential election … Mr Chirac may have two trump cards after Nanterre – his stronger image on law and order, and his traditional role as a man of the people … The tragedy of Nanterre allows Mr Chirac to play both cards. If Mr Chirac can avoid over-playing it, then Richard Durn may just have dealt him a winning hand." (82)
A winning hand that he wouldn't otherwise have held. Prior to the Durn affair, Chirac was trailing in the polls behind the country's Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin – despite persistent attacks from the right on Jospin's alleged "poor record on crime." (83) Chirac has been, notably, "campaigning on a ‘zero-tolerance’ law and order stance similar to that of New York." (84)
Similar, that is, to the agenda implemented by Mayor Rudolf Giuliani – widely viewed as an overtly fascist agenda before Rudy was resurrected by the media as 'America's Mayor' in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
Numerous prominent voices of the right in France quickly seized upon the Nanterre massacre. Presidential candidiate Alain Madelin, for example, said "the killing spree exemplified French society's dangerous drift toward ‘American-style violence.'" (85) How better to remedy that then than through the implementation of American-style fascism?
Bruno Megret of the National Movement, described by the Independent as one of France's more "extreme right-wing voices," insisted that "Durn’s actions were part of a ‘collapse of traditional values, a descent into barbarism.'" (86) Such language has been a staple of far-right opinion shapers here in the United States for quite some time.
If these voices of the right carry the day in France, then Richard Durn will do for Jacques Chirac what Willie Horton did for George H.W. Bush.
As for Jospin, he has, "like many French leftwingers ... long tried to play down the law-and-order issue as a rightwing, or even far-right, scare tactic." For that reason, according to the Guardian, "as he seeks to stop Mr Chirac from running away with the election's crunch issue, he remains more or less stuck with the left's traditional view that crime is partly the fault of society, whereas the right sees the offender as wholly responsible." (87)
It can be quite a burden to be "stuck" with promoting the truth when one is embroiled in a political campaign based on lies, smears, and disinformation aimed at discrediting those voices that do attempt to speak the truth about such issues as the causes of crime. Fortunately for our politicians here in America, such burdens don't exist since nobody even pretends to want to tell the truth. That, of course, doesn't stop the 'right' from relentlessly attacking what passes for the 'left' for being 'soft on crime.'
The attacks of last September 11, probably the most highly-publicized mass murder of all time, have been used by the illegitimate Bush administration to solidify support among the American people for a decidedly reactionary agenda, and to cast the previous - purportedly 'leftist' - administration as 'soft on terrorism.' In the same way, the attack in Nanterre is being used to push the French electorate to the right.
Perhaps it is appropriate then that among the "scores of police and firefighters" who were brought in to assist with tending to the victims in the Nanterre council chambers was a "contingent of New York City firemen currently visiting the Paris area." (88) It always helps to have people on-hand with experience in dealing with the aftermath of choreographed tragedies.
