User:Lord Gøn/Nanterre shooting rework

The Nanterre massacre refers to an act of mass murder that occurred on March 27, 2002, in Nanterre, France. 33-year-old gunman Richard Durn opened fire at the end of a council meeting, resulting in the deaths of 8 councilors, and the injuries of 19 others. Durn committed suicide the following day, by leaping from a police station window during questioning.

The shooting
At approximately 1:15 a.m. (CEST), at the Nanterre town hall, following a meeting of the municipal council chaired by Mayor Jacqueline Fraysse, Richard Durn rose from his seat, removed firearms previously hidden under his jacket, and opened fire. Durn killed eight councilors and injured 19 others; 14 critically, before being overpowered by Gerard Perreau-Bezouille and other councilors. Once overpowered, Durn began shouting, "Kill me!"

Following events
Durn was interrogated at the police station at 36 Quai des Orfèvres, Paris, on March 28. After confessing, Durn committed suicide by throwing himself from the fourth floor window.

Durn had sent a letter to a friend in which he explained his plan: "Because I have by my own will become a kind of living-dead, I have decided to end it all by killing a small local elite which is the symbol of, and who are the leaders and decision makers in, a city that I have always detested." He explained that he intended to kill the mayor, "and then as many people as possible [...] I will become a serial killer, a mad killer. Why? Because I am frustrated and I do not want to die alone, because I have had a shitty life. I want to feel powerful and free just once."

Perpetrator
Richard Durn (December 3, 1968 – March 28, 2002) was born in Nanterre to Stefania Durn, a woman of Slovenish descent. He never got to know his father, to whom his mother had only a brief and loveless relationship. When, as a teenager, Durn asked his mother about his father, she told him that he was an unwanted child she was obliged to keep, as she had no money for an abortion. Durn, a withdrawn and shy boy, did well at school.

At the age of 18 Durn consulted a psychiatrist, who put him on medication. In 1990 he made his first of several suicide attempts, when he swallowed sixty tablets and two years later he was hospitalized at Centre hospitalier Sainte-Anne in Paris after a relapse. Within the next ten years he received psychiatric treatment intermittently and went to humanitarian missions in war-torn countries, according to his mother in the hope of getting killed, though he also stated that these missions were the only adventure in his life. Speaking four languages he accompanied a convoy in Bosnia in 1993 and oversaw several humanitarian missions in Montenegro, Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania in 1998. By the president of the aid organisation he worked for Durn was described as solid man, who prepared the convoys with seriousness and enormous rigor.

Durn, who was nicknamed RoboCop, studied history and political science at the University of Nanterre, where he earned a masters degree in 1995, the same year he joined the Socialist Party. He worked as a superivsor at Lycée Paul-Langevin in Nanterre, where he was known as an odd and moody man among the students, who could be nice the one day, while handing out detentions on the other. Though he also found his only friend there in 1988, a student named Gaël Klein.

In 1997 Durn accompanied his friend on a journey to Israel, which was, according to Klein, one of the few times he was happy. There he visited the tomb of the perpetrator of the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, Baruch Goldstein, at Kiryat Arba, calling him a nefarious, though brave person. They also went to the fortress of Masada, where Durn went into rage for a trifle and threatened to kill his friend, who then returned to France. Back in Nanterre, Durn took theater courses where he insisted to work with texts of political nature.

In 1996 Durn secretly began training shooting, obtained a gun license, and acquired two Glock pistols and a Smith & Wesson revolver, which he used to carry with him in a bag. In 1998 he threatened a psychologist at the University of Paris with one of his guns. Although the incident was reported to police his guns were not confiscated and the case was closed without further investigation. Despite his treatment Durn, who occasionally took Prozac, remained depressed, telling his friend Klein that he felt worthless and expressing desperation about his unemployment, after losing his job as school supervisor in 1998. The same year he moved out of his mothers house, though returned shortly afterwards, because he was unable to live alone.

On October 9, 1999 he was rejected at the Bioforce Development Institute where he wanted to enrol to become a logistician for humanitarian missions. In his diary Durn described this as an important date in his life as a coward and moron, stating that upon seeing that his request will not be accepted he, who neither had home, nor girlfriend, gave up life. After wounding a ligament at his knee in 2001 he wrote that his physical condition was deteriorating more and more, expressing fears that he would end as a lame, an invalid. He also recorded in his diary that he had never learned how to fight, nor to like himself, that he had enough of being a depressive and pitiful person. "I have enough of this phrase which is repeating perpetually in my head: I have experienced nothing, I have experienced nothing in 30 years." (J’en ai marre d’avoir dans la tête cette phrase qui revient perpétuellement: je n’ai pas vécu, je n’ai rien vécu à 30 ans.)

As a consequence, to "save" himself, he joined the local Ligue des droits de l'homme, where he became treasurer, and got involved in the campaign of the Greens during the municipal elections, though he had the impression that they thought of him as an idiot.

The perpetrator in the shootings was Richard Durn, 33, who was originally from Slovenia. He held a Masters degree in political science and a degree in history. According to the police, Durn was an environmental activist, and a former member of the Socialist Party before joining the. He was also a member of the.

"My son often spoke of killing," said Durn's mother Stephania, a 65-year-old Slovenian, with whom he lived. People who knew him remembered an unassuming and timid man, with intellectual aspirations, who seemed in desperate search of a cause to which to dedicate himself. After gaining a degree in political science, he failed to find a teaching position so took a post as monitor at a school in Nanterre. Former pupils said he was an odd and moody person. "He was two-faced," said Farouk. "One day he was nice, the next he'd be handing out detentions." He kept the job until three years ago, and had since been living on unemployment benefits. He had no girlfriend or close companions. Throughout the 1990s Durn involved himself with humanitarian and leftwing political issues.

But the authorities failed to apply existing law to seize his guns after he used one to threaten a psychiatrist, even though a report was made. Nor did they disarm him as they should have after his ownership permits expired in 2000.

He had managed to obtain a weapons license despite a history of psychological illness. Durn's mother said her son had undergone psychotherapy, and often spoke about wanting to die

Mr. Durn had a long history of mental illness. His mother told police officials that he had tried to commit suicide several times in the past and had once threatened a psychologist with a gun.

Response
An official tribute was paid to the victims on April 2, in the presence of President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and Interior Minister Daniel Vaillant.

Impact
The massacre was discussed by French philosopher Bernard Stiegler in his book, Acting Out. Stiegler argues that Durn's feeling of non-existence was symptomatic of a society which tends to destroy the love of oneself and others, and that Durn's actions represent a "hyper-diachronic" acting out which is made possible by this feeling of non-existence.