Heartbreaking details of the cold-blooded shooting of three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday have emerged from CCTV footage of a massacre that has caused an outpouring of revulsion and grief in France.
The images show how the lone gunman wearing a motorcycle helmet hunted down individual children after opening fire at the school gates in an attack that left four dead and a teenager fighting for his life.
Eight-year-old Myriam Monsonego clutched her satchel as the killer chased her through the school gates and into the courtyard. He pulled her towards him by her hair and raised a gun to shoot her.
The video footage appears to show that, at that moment, his gun jammed.
Determined to carry out his killing spree, he kept hold of the girl, changed weapons from what police identified as a 9-mm pistol to a.45 calibre weapon, and delivered a shot to her temple at close range.
He then turned, calmly walked out of the school gates, mounted a powerful Yamaha scooter and sped away.
Moments later, an older pupil carried Myriam’s body to her father, Rabbi Yaacov Monsonego, principal of the school, who had been davening at the shul before the start of class when shots broke out. He cradled his daughter in his arms as she died.
The attack began at around 8am on Monday morning as pupils were dropped off at the school in the leafy suburb of La Roserie, a few miles north of Toulouse city centre. It was over in a matter of minutes.
The first victim was Rabbi Yonatan Sandler, a 30-year-old rabbi and teacher at the Ozar Hatorah school, who was shot outside the school gates as he attempted to shield his two young sons, Aryeh, 6, and Gavriel, 3, from the gunman.
CCTV footage from a camera at the gates reportedly showed that one of the boys was shot as he crawled away on his hands and knees while his father and brother lay dying on the pavement.
A 16-year-old pupil with knowledge of first aid bravely attempted to resuscitate one of the boys, keeping him alive until paramedics arrived.
“A friend and I carried the boy into the school and because I did a first aid course last year I knew to give him mouth-to-mouth and heart massage,” explained the pupil, who gave only his first name, Aaron, in an interview with Sud-Ouest newspaper. “His pulse resumed. He was alive and then paramedics arrived and took over. But later I heard he had died.”
Nicole Yardini, who leads the regional branch of CRIF, a national Jewish organisation, and has seen the CCTV footage, described it as sickening.
“It was like a horror film, something unreal. I can’t say more. He shot a little girl in the head in cold blood. When I say it I want to vomit.”
France came to a halt at 11 am yesterday (Tuesday) when a minute’s silence was observed in memory of the victims.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, after observing the silence at a secondary school in Paris, described the gunman as a “monster” and vowed to track him down.
“There are beings who have no respect for life. When you grab a little girl to put a bullet in her head, without leaving her any chance, you are a monster. An anti-Semitic monster, but first of all a monster,” he said.
“Civilisation cannot guard us from the madness of certain men, from the barbarism of certain men. What strikes me most is the coldness with which he acted.
“This has happened in Toulouse, in a religious school with children from Jewish families, but it could have happened here. The same killer could have come here, these children are exactly like you,” Mr Sarkozy told pupils.
“It is so serious a matter that the entire republic must be concerned.?.?. for your families and for yourselves. We will do everything to arrest him.”
Floral tributes, candles, toys and poignant messages to the victims lay at the school gates on Rue Jules-Dalou in La Roserie yesterday. Armed police stood guard.
The high cement walls of the school were marked with bullets sprayed by the killer and devastation was etched on the faces of those pupils, family and friends who had spent an overnight vigil alongside the coffins of the victims.
The Ozar Hatorah school of 200 pupils was also expected to reopen. “The children are in shock but they need to come together here, to undergo catharsis together,” said the local Jewish leader Arie Bensemhoun, adding that the school would get back on its feet quickly “even if the blood has not yet dried.”
{DNA India/Matzav.com Newscenter}
malach hamovess
True evil.
Prayers for the deceased and the injured.
L’fi Aniyas Daati, everyone who lives in a Yiddshe geggin MUST take shooting lessons and arm themselves,legally, of course, and be NOSAY NESHEK into ALL Yiddishe M’koymis where such a thing may CHAS V’SHALOM occur, similar to all of those “Hesder Yeshivot” where at ALL times there are assigned Talmidim and Yungeleit who carry powerful weapons at all times.
IM AIN ANI LI MI LI?
Anonymous I know how to shoot but I don’t have a weapon and don’t want one. Anonymous I have taught my sweet children things that I’d rather never have had to mention, which is what I was taught in the 70s myself. It is not always obvious at first sight that someone is not jewish
That said, even if I did carry a weapon, do you seriously think I’d do better than a professional paratrooper from an elite unit and with experience in the Afghani battlefield? That monster dispatched three of those, and sent another one to ICU where he still is in a coma.
Had there been heavy armed security at the school (and I agree, there should have been) he would have shot the people walking there (who were dressed like jews). Of course he may have been shot immediately afterwards, he may have caused fewer victims, but I think more likely, that monster, who prepared the attacks very carefully, would have left alone the school and instead targeted e.g. a jew with a large family getting cash from an ATM.