Toulouse gunman may have filmed deadly attack

PARIS

Soldiers and policemen stand guard in the subway, one day after the shooting at the Jewish school. The interior minister says police do not know the identity of the killer. AFP photo

Hundreds of police blanketed southern France yesterday, searching for a gunman who killed four people at a Jewish school and may have filmed his attack.

Interior Minister Claude Gueant admitted police do not know the identity of the cold-blooded killer who shot the four people in Toulouse and who murdered three soldiers last week in the same region. But he said the shooter may have recorded his crime at the Toulouse school with a sports video camera he wore strapped to his chest and that he could be planning to put the grim footage on the Internet.

Gueant described the suspect as “someone very cold, very determined, very much a master of his movements, and by consequence, very cruel.” Asked whether the gunman recorded the scene, Gueant responded, “We can imagine that.” The camera “records wide-angle footage that can then be watched
on a computer,” the minister said. “I feel that that will reinforce the killer’s psychological profile.”

But he added that authorities have not yet found any images of the killings online.

Authorities suspect the same killer was behind attacks last week on French paratroopers of North African and French Caribbean origin. It was the third motorbike killing in the region in about a week. In all three killings, the assailant fled on a motorbike. Schools across the country held a moment of silence to honor the victims, who were heading to Israel for burial. Sarkozy also met with members of France’s Jewish and Muslim community. France has the largest population of Jews and Muslims in western Europe.

Compiled from AFP and AP stories by the Daily News staff.