![]() |
Police and investigators collect evidence at the school in Touslous, France |
PARIS - A teacher
was gunned down along with his two children at a Jewish school in southern France Monday.
During the attack, the director of the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse saw his daughter shot and killed in
front of him. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called the shootings a
national tragedy.
The gunman pulled up in front of the
Jewish school just before 8 a.m. and started shooting, authorities said. The
dead included a 3-year-old child, and a 17-year-old was wounded, according to
local prosecutor Michael Valet.
It is the third time in the past 10
days that a gunman on a motorcycle has fired on minorities in the southwest of France. Black French
soldiers of north African origin were shot and killed on March 11 and March 15.
One of the guns used Monday was also
used in the earlier killings, said Elisabeth Allannic, a spokeswoman for
judicial authorities in Paris.
A court in Paris
Monday opened an investigation into all three killings, under anti-terrorism
powers.
The gunman wore a motorcycle helmet
and fled on a motor scooter after the shootings, Interior Ministry spokesman
Pierre-Henry Brandet said - the same method used in the earlier soldiers'
shootings.
Families hugged and wept in front of
police cars around the school in the aftermath of the shooting, pictures from
the scene showed.
Ambulances and police vans lined the
narrow streets of the city, and a helicopter circled overhead as police on foot
made their way through the small crowd of shocked locals to get to the
building.
French leader, President Sarkozy
flew to the school, where he declared that "everything must be done so the
killer is arrested." The Interior Ministry has ordered police across the
country to contact Jewish organizations to arrange increased vigilance.
France,
which has one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe, had 389 reported
acts of anti-Semitism in 2011, according to Representative Council of Jewish
Institutions in France,
known by the French acronym CRIF.
Toulouse police Capt. David Delattre said
that in the March 11 incident, a soldier was on his motorbike when a helmeted
man on another motorcycle shot and killed him. The soldier was not in uniform,
and his motorbike did not have any military identification, Delattre said.
Security tightened
Monday's shooting brought immediate
reaction from the Jewish world.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu called it a "savage crime" and said anti-Semitism could not
be ruled out as a motive.
Jewish communities around the world
are stepping up security in response to the shootings, the Jewish Federations
of North America said.
In the United States, National Security
Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said officials were "deeply saddened"
at news of the "horrific" attack. In New York, police increased security coverage
at Jewish neighbourhoods and institutions, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne
said.
No comments:
Post a Comment