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CNN Live At Daybreak

French Police Arrest Suspect in Mass Shooting

Aired March 27, 2002 - 06:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: In France, as we have been telling you, eight people have been killed in a shooting spree in Nanterre. The incident occurred at 1:15 a.m. there. That would be about 7:15 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast.

CNN's Jim Bittermann joins us live on the phone from Paris to tell us what happened -- good morning, Jim.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Police have now identified the gunman they have under arrest for the killings in the Paris suburb of Nanterre early this morning. According to authorities, he is 33-year-old Richard Durn, who local residents said was a school class monitor at a junior college in the suburb, and who, according to students, was shy but sometimes nasty.

Early this morning at a city council meeting, he turned murderous. As the meeting was ending, Durn suddenly stood up in the audience gallery and opened fire with two automatic weapons and a pistol. Over the course of several minutes, he is accused of systematically killing eight of the city councilers and wounding 19 other people, eight of whom are in serious condition right now.

The motive for this shooting, which has been described as an act of raging madness, is still not clear. Durn frequently attended city council meetings, and one of those killed was a teacher at the same school where the gunman worked.

A steady steam of politicians have visited the City Hall since the early hours of this morning. Security is the No. 1 issue in the ongoing presidential campaign here, and numerous candidates, including President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, have been before the cameras all morning expressing their condolences and decrying increasing crime in the country. Gun control laws were tightened in France in 1998, and in theory, Durn should have had a permit for the kind of weapons he used in the attack -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And, Jim, about those New York City firemen, they were in Paris training with Paris firefighters, but they did not participate in the rescue in this event.

BITTERMANN: That's the way we understand it. We hope to get a little more clarification on that, but they were, in fact, talking about kind of cross training with some of the French fireman, and also studying the kind of alert that went out this morning when the attack took place. The plan rouge, as it is called here, the red alert that firefighters in France can evoke, when they have a major incident on their hands. And of course, this morning was one of those.

COSTELLO: All right. Jim Bittermann, thanks for that update live from France this morning.

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