Nanterre massacre

Because in France too we have "great" stories!


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On the 27 of March 2002, Richard Durn killed 8 people and injured 19 others, 14 of them were seriously injured. He had a 9mm Glock and a .357 Magnum, 6 magazines with 15 bullets and one extended magazine with 26 bullets.



The shooting:

Richard Durn went to see a Council meeting (he had already saw similar meetings before). Before the meeting he had talked to some councilors. He waited the end of the Council meeting (a little after 1 a.m., he was the last member of the audience, the meeting had lasted 5 hours) to stand up, take his weapons and start shooting at councilors. He then reloaded his firearms and started shooting again. People first did not understand what happened but then hid under the desks. Durn first shoot at the councilors who were the closest to him, then started to move in the room to kill more people. People said he shot methodically. He shot more than 40 times. Three councilors were injured by the same bullet. The deputy-mayor later said : « He was there to kill us all. »




Someone threw a chair at him and Durn was overpowered by a few councilors, two of them were seriously injured. He resisted a lot when people tried to stop him and he managed to take another gun and shoot again. Once he was definitely overpowered while he was reloading, he asked several time « Kill me ! ». A councilor quickly alerted the police station of the event (the police station was about 100 meters near the town hall) and the police arrived five minutes later.

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Durn was arrested and driven to the hospital (he still asked to be killed in the vehicle). The police discovered he had a third gun.
Richard Durn was described as calm, determined and methodical during the shooting. He did not say a word.

Many people went to pay tribute to the victims, including the French president (at the time) Chirac.

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Death:

After the shooting, Richard Durn was placed on custody. He confessed his crime. The day after, at 10.15 am, while being questioned by a police officer, Durn ran to a fanlight and threw himself out of the window (fourth floor). Someone tried to grab his foot but only managed to keep a shoe.
You can find a picture of his body covered.



The perpetrator:

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Richard Durn was a depressed 33-year-old man. His family had Slovenian origins and had lived in Nanterre for more than 20 years. He did not draw attention to him in his neighborhood.
He was unemployed, received money from the welfare and took antidepressants. He had serious mental health issues but was yet authorized to own a firearm. He lived in his mother’s house and was an ecologist activist who had previously worked as a supervisor in middle school 6 years before the shooting. Some students said he was weird, especially the way he walked and called him « Mr. Bean ».

He was unknown to the police but was followed by psychiatrists. He was hospitalized from 1990 to 1995 until he threatened a doctor. He received medical attention again in 1998 by the Croix-Rouge in Paris but threatened the staff with a firearm. The social services alerted the administrative center of the event but did not filed a complaint. He kept his autorisation to own a firearm.

He was part of a shooting club and practiced for hours since 1996. In 1997 he obtained the authorization to own a firearm. About the French law at the time : you had to be in a shooting club for at least 6 years, to have a medical certificate showing that you were fit both physically and mentally. Then you had to be heard by the police who searched about you. Apparently at the time of the shooting, Durn’s authorization had to be renew.



Motive:


The police found a 13-page letter in his house. Durn explained he was disappointed with himself and others. He hated society, especially people from Nanterre where he had lived a whole life of failure. He wrote that he had failed his life, that he wanted to do things but always failed. He wanted to be a teacher, a politician but it failed, he wanted to have friends but it also failed. He ended his letter saying he wanted to commit suicide, he wanted the police to kill him because he hated himself. Durn wrote he wanted 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."
His mother said: « He told me « I have to kill people. » I don’t know why he had that idea. He wanted to kill people. I tried to reason with him. They were not even people who hurted him. His goal was to kill the most people as possible. »

Very interesting since France doesn't have that many Shootings. It reminds me of one of those obscure random shootings in the US in how quickly it has been forgotten.

Tommy QTR wrote:

Very interesting since France doesn't have that many Shootings. It reminds me of one of those obscure random shootings in the US in how quickly it has been forgotten.

I was 5 when it happened so I don't remember it but I asked my father and he remembered it, although I had to explain what he was before he could remember. I searched for other shootings in France and didn't find a lot. Most of them were massacres made by Germans during WW2 and terrorist attacks.

I found these few quite recent shootings:

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With no English wiki page (I could write summaries here if you want):

Tuerie du Bar du Téléphone - 10 people killed in a pub in 1978
Tuerie de Tours - 4 dead and 7 injured by a spree killer in a car in 2001
Massacre de Besançon - 7 killed and 5 seriously injured in a factory


And of course, we unfortunately had many terrorist attacks:

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2012 - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

2015 - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

2015 - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

2017 - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

2018 - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

They are the most famous shooting terror attacks, but there are many more with bombs and knifes. This is so depressing...

Neah wrote:

The day after, at 10.15 am, while being questioned by a police officer, Durn ran to a fanlight and threw himself out of the window (fourth floor).

I already knew how he jumped out of a window to kill himself, but I'm surprised that it was from a fourth floor window. Dude could've crippled himself for life real easily if he hadn't died.

A "rightist presidential candidate" Alain Modelin apparently called the shooting "this American-style byproduct, we wished not to have in France." Didn't we save their ass twice when they were the world's battlefield?

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QuestionMark wrote:

Neah wrote:

The day after, at 10.15 am, while being questioned by a police officer, Durn ran to a fanlight and threw himself out of the window (fourth floor).

I already knew how he jumped out of a window to kill himself, but I'm surprised that it was from a fourth floor window. Dude could've crippled himself for life real easily if he hadn't died.

I don't know if it makes a great difference, but I forgot to say it's from the fourth floor window, British and French way. So it is from the fifth floor for American people.

Neah wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

Neah wrote:

The day after, at 10.15 am, while being questioned by a police officer, Durn ran to a fanlight and threw himself out of the window (fourth floor).

I already knew how he jumped out of a window to kill himself, but I'm surprised that it was from a fourth floor window. Dude could've crippled himself for life real easily if he hadn't died.

I don't know if it makes a great difference, but I forgot to say it's from the fourth floor window, British and French way. So it is from the fifth floor for American people.

That's still an uncomfortably close distance.

His death had to be pretty painful.

Tommy QTR wrote:

His death had to be pretty painful.

Yes, and as QuestionMark mentioned above it was risky but I think he wanted to die so much that he had to try, he probably didn't know if he would have the opportunity to commit suicide later in prison. Based on his letter (he didn't want to die alone) and what he said after the shooting ("Kill me!"), the shooting was probably mainly due to the fact that he wanted to die.

Durn being led away by Police:

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QuestionMark wrote:

Neah wrote:

The day after, at 10.15 am, while being questioned by a police officer, Durn ran to a fanlight and threw himself out of the window (fourth floor).

I already knew how he jumped out of a window to kill himself, but I'm surprised that it was from a fourth floor window. Dude could've crippled himself for life real easily if he hadn't died.

Apparently he was still alive for a few minutes and then they left his body outside for more than 3 hours.

Durn's six page letter to Sylvaine:

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Before the shooting, he called his friend six or seven time on Sunday night and made him feel guilty, he said that the friend was not there to help Richard who needed him and that something was going to happen.

A news report about the shooting:



Sadly I don't speak French and auto translate isn't that accurate.

Tommy QTR wrote:

A news report about the shooting:



Sadly I don't speak French and auto translate isn't that accurate.

I can translate it if you want.

Neah wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

A news report about the shooting:



Sadly I don't speak French and auto translate isn't that accurate.

I can translate it if you want.

I mean I don't really want to bother you but could you please?

You don't have to translate all of it, just the first minute if you want.

Tommy QTR wrote:

Neah wrote:

I can translate it if you want.

I mean I don't really want to bother you but could you please?

You don't have to translate all of it, just the first minute if you want.

I'd be happy to have a translation too. I looked up some articles from Le Monde after you brought this up because I'd never heard of this massacre and I think it's interesting. He didn't put on airs in the same way as most other shooters. He basically admitted that he felt that he was a lifelong loser and a coward and that's why he was doing this.

Don't worry, it doesn't bother me at all! I'm very proud to share with you our French criminal heritage!
In France it is 11 p.m. and I will translate it during the night so depending on where you live and when you go to sleep you may see it tomorrow morning.

If you have other articles only in French that you want me to translate, or at least to sum up, feel free to ask.

Neah wrote:

Don't worry, it doesn't bother me at all! I'm very proud to share with you our French criminal heritage!
In France it is 11 p.m. and I will translate it during the night so depending on where you live and when you go to sleep you may see it tomorrow morning.

If you have other articles only in French that you want me to translate, or at least to sum up, feel free to ask.

Thanks, although I don't think you spend all night translating it though, don't want to loose sleep.

sscc wrote:

He didn't put on airs in the same way as most other shooters. He basically admitted that he felt that he was a lifelong loser and a coward and that's why he was doing this.

Agreed, and this is why I relate to him so much, even if I find the shooting less fascinating than others. He also said he did that because he didn't want to die alone, I think you need to be brave to admit it, and yet this is a very human fear.

Translated transcript of the video:

Jacqueline Fraysse – Mayor of Nanterre (video of her after the shooting in 2002): My councilors died right in front of me and… right now I am with the victims’ families, my councilors and their family. I would like to tell them to be brave, (almost crying) it’s a terrible tragedy. They were young men, young women, they were committed, honest, they stood up for their ideas, they had children. I think of their family a lot. What will happen? We will have to overcome it… bravely… the best we can.

TV presenter (2015): On March 27 2002 at 1:15 a.m at the town hall of Nanterre, the municipal council was about to end their meeting when suddenly, in the room a man opened fire. He shot with method 37 times. In a few seconds he killed 8 councilors of the Republic and injure 19 people. Richard Durn would then be overpowered by men who were in the room. My guest was one of these men, he is Laurent El Ghozi. Hello, thank you for being here.

El Ghozi – Hello.

Presenter – You were a town councilor at the town hall of Nanterre at the time, and you still are today. We will first come back to the meeting, it ended late, some people were still there to attend it, including Richard Durn who hid weapons under his jacket. No one had noticed anything strange with this man?

El Ghozi – No, the meetings of the town council are public, so there are always a small audience even if at 1 a.m there are not many people. Richard Durn was there, so there was nothing unusual until… Mrs. The Mayor that we just heard obviously very touched at that moment, said that the meeting was ended, and at that moment at the back of the room Richard Durn stood up and said: “No Mrs. Mayor, the meeting is not ended” and he started shooting.

Presenter – And when he shot, did you immediately understand what was happening?

El Ghozi – Not at all.

Presenter – At the time witnesses were wondering if it was firecrackers.

El Ghozi – I stood up and told him: “Stop this bullshit. It’s not funny.” So you see, I was completely off beam and it is when I saw my co-workers, on the right and on the left, fall that I realized it was not at all a joke.

Presenter – And he shot in a rather precise way, he would walk from desks to desks.

El Ghozi – It is important to know that Richard Durn had practiced shooting since he had a firearm license, he practiced in the prefecture club of the Hauts-de-Seine so he was a good shooter. Shooting at targets who were at 5, 6 meters from him, so very close, who were quite motionless, astonished by what was happening was not very difficult.

Presenter – And so, as I said before, you were one of these men who tried to overpower him, who did overpower him. When exactly did you understand it was the right time to do it?

El Ghozi – Well very quickly, very quickly… I really don’t think you think about it, neither that we can talk about… It really is an instinctive response to something that is unbearable and to which it is necessary to intervene immediately. We were two or three, then a few, five, six or seven who rushed to him when he bypassed the row of the deputies, because I was a deputy, so I was in front whereas the town councilors had their back turned to him and so, one of the councilors threw a chair to him to stop him because he was going up to the platform of the deputies and we were a few to rush to overpower him.

Presenter – And you were decorated for act of bravery by president Chirac. After the tragedy you denounced an inadequate security system.

El Ghozi – No, I didn’t, I didn’t. Well, I don’t believe, it’s a little paradoxical to say, I don’t really believe it is a security matter. I think it is much more of a prevention issue, of attention to others, of care, I will talk about it later, but we can see that an extremely protected place like Charlie Hebdo’s place was didn’t prevented an abominable terror attack. So I don’t think that the solution rests upon security. Now we have set an electronic gate, the meeting is still public… Well, it is protection, it reassures people, indeed two security guards stay at the entrance… I am not sure it can prevent another tragedy, here or somewhere else. There is no drastic and permanent safety measure. Again, look at what happened a few weeks ago at Charlie.

Presenter – You are still a town councilor today, was it difficult to start working again?

El Ghozi – It was not difficult for me, not for me for several reasons. First I was injured, one bullet went through my body indeed, but without great damages, without consequence so I suffered from no trouble physically. I am a surgeon, so death is something that I am more familiar with than others, even violent and extremely close death. And finally, I intervened, that is to say that I had an effect on a dramatic event, which is not the case for everybody. And what I just told you is that an event in which we could think everybody is in the same situation, well, in fact it shows that there are inequalities regarding what people are, what people do, the position people were in, whether or not people were injured and so we are extremely unequal toward an event that yet we lived together, and it’s a real issue.

Presenter – Some people still suffer today.

El Ghozi – I think that in the crew some people immediately quitted their job because they couldn’t be in the room where the meeting took place anymore, others are probably more traumatized, it’s a collective event but some are probably more traumatized than I am so it was obvious for me that by no way I could stop, by no way I could stop that way, give up my political action, my commitment because of an event, as tragic as it was.

Presenter – Richard Durn would kill himself during his questioning by throwing himself out of a window the day after. Did you blame the policemen at 36 Quai des Orfèvres?

El Ghozi – Well I think that we heard the account of the events since the police and the public prosecutor told us, I think that they did their job.

Presenter – Were you waiting for answers by this man or the justice?

El Ghozi – Well obviously a trial is useful to come back to the events, to better understand what happened, to reduce the suffering, in particular the suffering of my deceased co-workers’ families, that’s for sure. But yet it doesn’t change anything, and he told us when he was being arrested, on the floor, he told us “Kill me, kill me.” So as I feel it, and upon consideration, it was an escorted suicide, he did not want to die alone, he chose to die with people that he blamed for his situation, we also can talk about it later, but his will was to kill himself. He had a suicidal history, to come back to what you said earlier about the issue of prevention, what the story of Richard Durn mainly teaches us, but it also applies to other tragic recent events, is how a society take into account people with great suffering, with or without mental health issues but in this case he had mental health issues, individuals known to psychiatric institutions, known to the city hall services, by the social services, who practice in a shooting club, about whom we know, because he attended the Socialist Party, that he was not well so there is a group of people who know that someone or someone else is not well, that someone or someone else is going off the rails and yet society doesn’t understand it, it doesn’t seize upon these information so that together we can try to implement solutions. There are measures, I think especially about what is called the Mental Health Local Council for example, where participants can focus on a tricky and complex situation, where we can see that everything is a little mixed up, the story of the family, professional failures, lack of home, the story of his father in this case, and where after all we can prop these people who suffer a lot before they move into a tragic action, whether it is suicide or the murder of others. It is a real social issue.

Presenter – Laurent El Ghozi, if I ask you to end this sentence: “March 27 2002 was the day when…” what do you answer?

El Ghozi – It was the day when eight of my co-workers died and I almost died.

Presenter – Thank you very much for having been my guest Mr. El Ghozi.

I edited my previous comment to add the end of the transcript. I recommend you watch the video at 2:25, there is a quick animation to explain how the shooting happened:

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Thanks for translating.

Was there any change to French Gun laws after this happened?

Tommy QTR wrote:

Was there any change to French Gun laws after this happened?

I don't think so, because the gun law is already rather strict (although less strict than in the UK I think). Richard Durn got his guns legally, the issue was not gun control, the issue was that he was known to mental health service but still was able to buy a gun, although I don't think he should have been allowed to. I think ever armouries cannot sell a firearm to a person who looks depressed. Maybe now the police is more careful and do a better job, but the law itself didn't really change. I know Britain changed his gun control after the Hungerford and the Dunblane massacres, France didn't because what was criticized was the application of the law, not the law itself. Even after the April 2017 Champs-Elysées attack, we didn't talk about gun control at all, because in this case the issue was the ideology, not the gun.

Here is Richard Durn's journal. I don't know if except for the truncated parts it is a full version, or if there are days missing. I am not responsible for the truncated parts, this is how I found the text in French and I haven't found a complete version. If you find mistakes you can tell me.

Richard Durn wrote:

May 2 1998
It has been almost a week since I came back from Israel. I have a bitter taste in my mouth and in my hear. I didn’t meet Israelis and Palestinians enough. This land is not mine. I am now utterly convinced that I don’t believe in God nor in life after death.
I will often pray my way in the future because I will be afraid and I will delude myself that I am listened and redeemed because I will admit that I was mistaken and that I failed. […] I write because I hope I can prove to myself that I am still alive even if objectively everything show that I am not.

February 9 1999
I am fed up with always having in my head this sentence that always comes: “I didn’t live, I’m 30 and I lived nothing.” I am fed up with listening to radio for hours in order not to feel cut off from the rest of the world and with staying some evenings glued to the television even if I know it only turns people into mindless idiots and make them and their mind stupid. I am fed up with desperately waiting for a letter or a phone call whereas I don’t exist anymore for nobody, whereas everybody forgot me… I have never known how to fight. I have never known how to love myself a little (without being navel-gazing or egocentric). I am always putting my own limits on myself. I am always giving people a stick and making it easier for them to flagellate me. Enough of being the depressed man and the token pathetic guy (at best).
I am tired of seeing my body and my face grow old, tired of noting that time goes and that I have nothing. […] I don’t want to be at the bottom of the ladder anymore and to see all the people I knew go ahead in life (marriage, life in couple, financial independence, cutting the apron strings, professional career and strategies to make it advance). I feel stuck because I don’t have a wife. I feel stuck because I didn’t learn how to be vital to a group of people. I’m screwed because I don’t have any social and emotional bearings anymore. Now I am only a registration number nobody cares about. I am blindfolded and I go round in circles in a room and I bang into a furniture item or a wall every ten seconds. I don’t want to die without having fucked a lot. I don’t want to die without having been in love and without a woman having been in love with me, even if I am weak, clapped-out and immature and that I am already more than 30.
I don’t want to die without having known many people abroad, without having had one, even if it is only one, friend. I don’t want to die without having known beautiful and serious things in the world, for example, some landscapes, a place where I would feel good (desert, mountains, equatorial, tropical environment), swim with whales, with dolphins.
For months I have had thoughts of massacre and death in my mind. I don’t want to be submissive anymore. I don’t want to lack boldness and to get it wrong anymore. Why should I destroy myself and suffer alone like an idiot? Even if I will be cursed, even if I will be seen as a monster, I won’t feel deceived and humiliated anymore. I want to live. I want to love. I want to grow up, I want to fight and to find a fight I believe in, even if I lose. My mother can do nothing for me and we destroy ourselves each other. I don’t have a family anymore, no models anymore, no ideal anymore and I still haven’t find my own identity at 30.

February 10 1999
I am tired of running away. I run away because I don’t know how to defend myself. I am always the defeated one. I am always imagining myself losing and I am ashamed of it so I do nothing. I am ashamed of having stayed watching this shitty World cup this summer instead of traveling in the desert or in a country or a place where I think I could have been happy, even if only for a few days. I am dying, I am becoming lazy and soon I will sink into desocialisation.
I will go with the aid convoy organized by Roland, hoping in a latent way that, either I will feel an electroshock and meet people who will awaken my taste for life, or I will die over there.
I am making a stupid bet. Something needs to happen during this humanitarian trip or there is nothing left. I want to scram from this house (from my mother’s place), from his city, from this monotony, from chaos. I am dying too much.
I want to see if I can live a little. All this need stop. Either I find the taste for life or I die suddenly but not bit by bit as I am doing.

January 2 2002
I will now try to search into the deepest part of me. Am doing it out of a taste for self-flagellation, out of a narcissistic and morbid devotion, a last survival instinct to get through it, hoping it will cure me? Or am I trying to write again on what I am and what I do, hoping that I can escape boredom and emptiness?
My name is Durn Richard. I am more than 33 years old and I am incapable of doing anything in life and with my life. I have been an onanist for at least twenty years. I don’t know what the woman body is anymore and I never lived a true love story. I wank because I feel lonely, because I am used to being disgusted by myself, because I want to forget the emptiness of my life and probably out of pleasure. But what kind of pleasure do I really feel?
I failed my studies and I have no job because I am afraid to work and to deal with responsibilities. I don’t know how to fight in the world of work, I don’t know how to fall in with people without trying to grow attached to them like a lost child without his parents. […] Thus I have no social role nor source of income.
Octobre 9 1999 was an important date in my life as the coward and the moron that I am. As I realized that I was not accepted in the Bioforce school to become a humanitarian logistician, that I had no accommodation, no girlfriend (I had not made love for years nor during the summer holidays), I gave up life. I threw in the towel. I could take a training course to become a chief education adviser in a university institute for teachers, but why? To do a job I would abhor if I had passed the competitive exam.
I have always hated my past job as a school monitor, where I was a no-one and where I was humiliated and in which I vegetated. I suffer and I am full of hate. But this hate doesn’t externalize. It is repressed.
The conformist that I am needs to destroy lives, to do harm in order to feel at least once in my life that I exist. Taste for destruction, because I have always seen myself and lived as a no-one and because I am no-one. Why keep pretending to live? I can for just a few moments feel alive through killing.

Neah wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

Was there any change to French Gun laws after this happened?

I don't think so, because the gun law is already rather strict (although less strict than in the UK I think). Richard Durn got his guns legally, the issue was not gun control, the issue was that he was known to mental health service but still was able to buy a gun, although I don't think he should have been allowed to. I think ever armouries cannot sell a firearm to a person who looks depressed. Maybe now the police is more careful and do a better job, but the law itself didn't really change. I know Britain changed his gun control after the Hungerford and the Dunblane massacres, France didn't because what was criticized was the application of the law, not the law itself. Even after the April 2017 Champs-Elysées attack, we didn't talk about gun control at all, because in this case the issue was the ideology, not the gun.

I wish Britain would be more like France then when it comes to the gun laws, considering that Dunblane could of easily been prevented if the Police had done their job and listened to all the people who reported Hamilton (which was over 10 times).

His journal is very interesting, thank you for translating.

Tommy QTR wrote:

His journal is very interesting, thank you for translating.

You're welcome, I edited my previous comment to add a new day of his diary. Then I have one day left, and other short extracts from his letter and interview with the police and then I think it is all the texts we have from him. I really relate with him.

Tommy QTR wrote:

I wish Britain would be more like France then when it comes to the gun laws, considering that Dunblane could of easily been prevented if the Police had done their job and listened to all the people who reported Hamilton (which was over 10 times).

Yeah, it is the whole group who suffer from the mistakes of a very few people.

Neah wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

His journal is very interesting, thank you for translating.

You're welcome, I edited my previous comment to add a new day of his diary. Then I have one day left, and other short extracts from his letter and interview with the police and then I think it is all the texts we have from him. I really relate with him.

I relate to him also, can't wait to read the rest of his stuff.

For people interested in Richard Durn (except Tommy, there is nothing newer that what you already had but soon I will post some other random stuff), I edited my post about his diary to add the final part of it.

And here is what he said to the policemen:

Quote :

   I woke up, I took the Glock 19 that was in the right outside pocket of my parka. I started to aim and shoot at the mayoress, Mrs. Fraysse. I aimed right in front of me, I think I managed to shoot her but I am not sure. I acted like a robot, I didn’t say a word. I started the shooting with Mrs. Fraysse because she was in the middle. I had not planned an exact order in my shooting, I wanted to kill as many people as possible, then to kill myself.
   I don’t know who I injured or killed. I could only see blood and hear screams. The only person that I aimed at deliberately was Mrs. Fraysse. I aimed at her because of her status as a mayor, but also because I didn’t respect her.
   Because I had become a living-dead by my own will, I decided to put an end to it by killing a local micro-elite who were the symbol and the leaders and the decision-makers of a city I always loathed. I didn’t find the antidotes to respect myself and others. I didn’t reach an ideal of humanism as I let myself fall into idleness and failure, I wanted to kill to take a futile and puerile revenge on myself and on those symbols of power that they are.
   I wanted to know the headiness and the feeling of being free through death.

Very interesting indeed.

I can't help to feel sympathy for him as I too have feelings of depression and hopelessness.

Neah wrote:

For people interested in Richard Durn (except Tommy, there is nothing newer that what you already had but soon I will post some other random stuff), I edited my post about his diary to add the final part of it.

And here is what he said to the policemen:

Quote :

   I woke up, I took the Glock 19 that was in the right outside pocket of my parka. I started to aim and shoot at the mayoress, Mrs. Fraysse. I aimed right in front of me, I think I managed to shoot her but I am not sure. I acted as a robot, I didn’t say a word. I started the shooting with Mrs. Fraysse because she was in the middle. I had not planned an exact order in my shooting, I wanted to kill as many people as possible, then to kill myself.
   I don’t know who I injured or killed. I could only see blood and hear screams. The only person that I aimed at deliberately was Mrs. Fraysse. I aimed at her because of her status as a mayor, but also because I didn’t respect her.
   Because I had become a living-dead by my own will, I decided to put an end to it by killing a local micro-elite who were the symbol and the leaders and the decision-makers of a city I always loathed. I didn’t find the antidotes to respect myself and others. I didn’t reach an ideal of humanism as I let myself fall into idleness and failure, I wanted to kill to take a futile and puerile revenge on myself and on those symbols of power that they are.
   I wanted to know the headiness and the feeling of being free through death.

Did he ever mention what model of revolver he used?

He used two 9mm Glocks (at least one is a Glock 19) and he also had a .357 Magnum but I don't think he used it.

I found an interesting article about him, with many information I didn't know (at the beginning it is a more free translation and I removed well-known information).

Here is the first part, mainly about his childhood:

Quote :

Richard Durn hesitated during the evening if he would commit the shooting or not. “During all this time, I wondered if I was going to move into action or not. During the last minutes of the meeting, I understood that I could not go back, it was now or never”, he told the police after the shooting. He shot 38 bullets in 55 seconds. Durn had kept a bullet to commit suicide but was stopped by members of the meeting. “I was overpowered. They took my Smith & Wesson that was in my left inside pocket. It is at that moment that I shouted: “Kill me, kill me!”” He was then arrested and officers from the criminal squad thought he was “terribly excited”. At the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris, a doctor thought the state of his mental health was ok for him to be in custody.

Richard Durn was born on December 3 1968 in Nanterre. His mother is Slovenian and his father is unknown. Richard Durn had an issue with not knowing his origins and with the fact that his mother did not want to talk to him about it. His mother, Stéfania, worked in the biscuit factory Heudeber then for Citroën. In 1968, she had a “loveless relation” with a “passing man” that she “buried” in her “private world”. Pregnant and without enough money to abort, Stéfania left the maternity ward with her baby on Friday the 13th. “I knew it would bring me bad luck”, she sensed. She had trouble mothering this “withdrawn, shy, contemplative and cuddly little boy”, who yet learn well in school. “You cannot force yourself to love someone you didn’t want” said Stéfania. “I loved him little by little when he started to grow.” When he was a teenager, Richard Durn asked questions about his father. His mother only told him that he was an unwanted baby, “an accident”, that she was “forced to keep him”. She didn’t give any information. “But I had no pictures, nothing” Stéfania claimed. “Richard perceived it as a tragedy.”

Also I found this: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
It is in English and maybe it can interest you, especially about the aftermath of the shooting.

Quote :

At 18, Durn saw a psychiatrist who prescribed medicine. In 1990, Durn swallowed sixty pills to ended his life. Two years later he tried to kill himself again and end up at the hospital Sainte-Anne. For the next ten years he received an irregular psychiatric support and went in humanitarian missions in countries in war: “I go there” he told his mother “because I have the hope that I could be killed or step on a mine.” He was a student at the university of Nanterre and was a supervisor in a middle school in the Hauts-de Seine. Since 1988, this strict and taciturn supervisor that people called “Robocop” was yet liked by one student, Gaël K. Gaël thought Durn was “very cultivated and super interesting when he talked about wars in the world”. He became his only friend. In 1993, Richard Durn, who talked four languages, went for the first time with a convoy in Bosnia and got back to his roots in the Balkans: “It is the only adventure in my life.” He got his degree in history in 1995, studied a political science master and became a member of the Socialist Party.
In 1997, Durn went to Israel with Gaël: “It was one of the very few times I saw Richard fulfilled, relaxed, with no darkness in his eyes. He had the face of a child.” After spending a week in Jerusalem youth hostel, Durn went to commune with himself in Kyriat Arba Jewish colony on the tomb of the Zionist extremist Barush Goldstein who murdered twenty-nine Palestinians in 1994. “Richard thought it was despicable but brave that a guy goes into a mosque with a gun and shoot” said Gaël. Durn also went to the Masada fortress where, in 74 AD, the Jewish members of the resistance who were surrounded by the Romans killed themselves in order not to surrender. On site, Durn lost his temper because of a trifle and threatened to kill his friend who, afraid, went back to France. “I thought you were going to kill me” said Gaël later. But when Richard said about himself that he was “crazy”, his friend did not believe him.

Durn seems to be like other mass shooters in that he tried to commit suicide before their shooting, also it's interesting that he visited the tombstone of Baruch Goldstein and called him "brave."

I also think him not knowing his father and that his mother saying she was forced to keep him had some psychological effect on him.

Neah wrote:

He used two 9mm Glocks (at least one is a Glock 19) and he also had a .357 Magnum but I don't think he used it.

I think he was going to use the revolver to commit suicide with.

Also his shooting lasted 55 seconds? I think that's one of the shortest shootings ever.

QuestionMark wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

Neah wrote:

He used two 9mm Glocks (at least one is a Glock 19) and he also had a .357 Magnum but I don't think he used it.

I think he was going to use the revolver to commit suicide with.

Also his shooting lasted 55 seconds? I think that's one of the shortest shootings ever.

55 seconds and he managed to kill 8 people? Must've had some good aim in that case.

I think it's also because he shot at close range.

I'm trying to think of any shootings that were shorter, but I don't think there is.

Tommy QTR wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

Neah wrote:

He used two 9mm Glocks (at least one is a Glock 19) and he also had a .357 Magnum but I don't think he used it.

I think he was going to use the revolver to commit suicide with.

Also his shooting lasted 55 seconds? I think that's one of the shortest shootings ever.

55 seconds and he managed to kill 8 people? Must've had some good aim in that case.

I think it's also because he shot at close range.

I'm trying to think of any shootings that were shorter, but I don't think there is.

Indeed, El Ghozi, a town councilor who was there during the shooting and helped stop Richard Durn said in the video Tommy shared: "It is important to know that Richard Durn had practiced shooting since he had a firearm license, he practiced in the prefecture club of the Hauts-de-Seine so he was a good shooter. Shooting at targets who were at 5, 6 meters from him, so very close, who were quite motionless, astonished by what was happening was not very difficult."

I think the 55 seconds are when he was shooting without people trying to stop him, because he was overpowered a first time, but he then managed to shoot again (I don't know if he hurt or killed people) and he was then overpowered again. If when he managed to shoot again he didn't injure anyone, it would still be part of the shooting but not part of the moment he killed 8 people, so maybe not part of the 55 seconds.

Neah wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

Neah wrote:

He used two 9mm Glocks (at least one is a Glock 19) and he also had a .357 Magnum but I don't think he used it.

I think he was going to use the revolver to commit suicide with.

Also his shooting lasted 55 seconds? I think that's one of the shortest shootings ever.

55 seconds and he managed to kill 8 people? Must've had some good aim in that case.

I think it's also because he shot at close range.

I'm trying to think of any shootings that were shorter, but I don't think there is.

Indeed, El Ghozi, a town councilor who was there during the shooting and helped stop Richard Durn said in the video Tommy shared: "It is important to know that Richard Durn had practiced shooting since he had a firearm license, he practiced in the prefecture club of the Hauts-de-Seine so he was a good shooter. Shooting at targets who were at 5, 6 meters from him, so very close, who were quite motionless, astonished by what was happening was not very difficult."

I think the 55 seconds are when he was shooting without people trying to stop him, because he was overpowered a first time, but he then managed to shoot again (I don't know if he hurt or killed people) and he was then overpowered again. If when he managed to shoot again he didn't injure anyone, it would still be part of the shooting but not part of the moment he killed 8 people, so maybe not part of the 55 seconds.

Still it has to be one of the shortest shooting there is.

Tommy QTR wrote:

Neah wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

Neah wrote:

He used two 9mm Glocks (at least one is a Glock 19) and he also had a .357 Magnum but I don't think he used it.

I think he was going to use the revolver to commit suicide with.

Also his shooting lasted 55 seconds? I think that's one of the shortest shootings ever.

55 seconds and he managed to kill 8 people? Must've had some good aim in that case.

I think it's also because he shot at close range.

I'm trying to think of any shootings that were shorter, but I don't think there is.

Indeed, El Ghozi, a town councilor who was there during the shooting and helped stop Richard Durn said in the video Tommy shared: "It is important to know that Richard Durn had practiced shooting since he had a firearm license, he practiced in the prefecture club of the Hauts-de-Seine so he was a good shooter. Shooting at targets who were at 5, 6 meters from him, so very close, who were quite motionless, astonished by what was happening was not very difficult."

I think the 55 seconds are when he was shooting without people trying to stop him, because he was overpowered a first time, but he then managed to shoot again (I don't know if he hurt or killed people) and he was then overpowered again. If when he managed to shoot again he didn't injure anyone, it would still be part of the shooting but not part of the moment he killed 8 people, so maybe not part of the 55 seconds.

Still it has to be one of the shortest shooting there is.

gotta go fast

I remember reading somewhere that the type of Revolver he used was a Smith & Wesson, although I'm not sure what model it was.

Tommy QTR wrote:

I remember reading somewhere that the type of Revolver he used was a Smith & Wesson, although I'm not sure what model it was.

It was a .357 Magnum but he apparently didn't use it, although some articles say he did (after he was overpowered for the first time, while others say at that moment he took his second Glock). I personally think he only used his two Glock pistols for the shooting, especially since he took a second gun only when he was overpowered and may have lost the first gun. He didn't use two guns at the same time so I don't know why he would take his Smith & Wesson for no reason.

Neah wrote:

Tommy QTR wrote:

I remember reading somewhere that the type of Revolver he used was a Smith & Wesson, although I'm not sure what model it was.

It was a .357 Magnum but he apparently didn't use it, although some articles say he did (after he was overpowered for the first time, while others say at that moment he took his second Glock). I personally think he only used his two Glock pistols for the shooting, especially since he took a second gun only when he was overpowered and may have lost the first gun. He didn't use two guns at the same time so I don't know why he would take his Smith & Wesson for no reason.

I think he brought the Revolver with him so he could commit suicide with it after killed as many people as he could, but yeah I also agree he only used his two Glocks during the Shooting.

Video of the aftermath:

I just found out there's a book called "Acting Out" by Bernard Stiegler a French Philosopher which talks about Durn's Shootings.