Reuters: Four shot dead at French Jewish school

[Patricia M. McBride]

What sane person attacks little children no matter their faith?  This is horrendous.

 

By Guillaume Serries

TOULOUSE, France | Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:30am EDT

TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) - A gunman on a motorbike shot dead at least four people, including three children, at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday, just days after three soldiers were killed in similar shootings in the same area of southwest France.

"I saw two people dead in front of the school, an adult and a child ... Inside, it was a vision of horror, the bodies of two small children," one father, searching for his son at the Ozar Hatorah school among crowds of distraught parents and children, told RTL radio.

The gunman killed a 30-year old Hebrew teacher, his two children aged three and six, and another child, Toulouse prosecutor Michel Valet said. A 17-year-old was wounded.

"The attacker was shooting people outside the school, then pursued children into the school, before fleeing on a heavy motorbike," Valet told reporters.

The soldiers, one of Caribbean and two of Muslim origin, also been killed in drive-by shootings and prosecutors opened an anti-terrorism investigation into all three attacks although it was not clear whether the motive was political or purely racist.

President Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande, the Socialist opposing him in his uphill bid for re-election in May, both rushed to the scene.

Sarkozy said he was struck by the similarities between the three attacks.

"We don't know who this killer is and what is the exact link is to the drama that has hit the military community," Sarkozy said after arriving in Toulouse. "Everything must be done so that the killer is stopped and has to pay for his crimes."

"Our schools must keep functioning, our compatriots that want to worship at synagogues, mosques and churches must be able to continue to do so. We should not give ground to terror."

Read more here:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/19/us-france-crime-idUSBRE82...