Adolescent arrested on suspicion of connection to school shooter in France

U13-year-old teenager was arrested at the end of Wednesday, in northern France, in an investigation into the 14-year-old boy who shot teachers at a school in Aubagne.

The information was advanced by the French station Franceinfo, which cites sources close to the process, and the arrest took place on the same day that the suspect of the shooting was subject to the measure of restraining arrest.

The young man arrested is suspected of having held conversations with the author of the TikTok social network shooting and investigators now want to determine whether he was also influenced by the ultraviolent True Crime Community (TCC) movement.

TCC, underlines itself, is an Internet subculture centered on an intense fascination by violent criminals and mass murderers. 

The crime occurred on Monday morning, when the 14-year-old teenager, all dressed in black and wearing gloves, entered the school with a guitar case that contained a gun. 

According to the investigation, the young man fired in the direction of the school principal and a teacher standing next to him in the lobby. They both managed to take refuge in a first floor room until they called 911.

Then he went up to the second floor and shot down the hall floor in front of a teacher who had left the room after hearing the shots. Then he went down the hall, entered a room occupied by students and another teacher and shot a blackboard. 

Another teacher eventually managed to immobilize the suspect when he came down the stairs, disarming him and taking him to a room until the police arrived.

Authorities have investigated their social networks, including accounts in ProtonMail, Discord, Snapchat and TikTok, and have discovered sharing of extremely violent content, including massacres in schools. 

On Wednesday, present in court, the teen confessed to the crimes, but rejected “having intended to kill”. The motivation, he explained, was a desire for revenge related to harassment situations that he said he suffered from teachers and colleagues at the Joseph-Lakanal Institute in Aubagne, near Marseille.

The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor's Office of France (PNAT) opened an investigation against the student for attempted murder related to a terrorist activity, terrorist criminal association and possession and transport of weapons and ammunition for no legitimate reason.

Teenager's father was also arrested

On Monday, the adolescent's father was also arrested after police found an arsenal of weapons in his home. The mother was questioned by the authorities.

The information was given by the French Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez. During a press statement at the Joseph-Lakanal institute in Aubagne, where he went along with the Minister of Education, Édouard Geffray, Laurent Nuñez assured that the first elements of the investigation show that the young man committed “a premeditated act”, while asking for time to establish the motive and pointed out that “all hypotheses remain open.”.