• All French shooting victims shot in the head at close range, prosecutor says

    Schools throughout France held a moment of silence in memory of the four killed in the Toulouse school shooting. Meanwhile, French police have launched a massive manhunt for the killer. ITN's Martin Geissler reports.

    By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services

    TOULOUSE, France -- A prosecutor said that all seven victims of a recent spate of shootings in southwest France -- three soldiers and four at a Jewish school -- were killed with bullets to the head, shot at such close range that the gunfire burned the skin.


    All three attacks were carried out by a man on a powerful motorcycle who was wearing a helmet and carrying a Colt 45, Prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters in Paris. But he said other clues to the killer's identify were scarce.

    "We are confronted with an individual extremely determined in his actions, an armed individual who acts always with the same modus operandi," Molins said, "in cold blood ... with premeditated actions."

    Molins also noted that the attacks had occurred every four days, but said he could not address security arrangements that might be inplace Friday -- the fourth day after the attack on the Jewish school.

    The prosecutor also downplayed an earlier report by Interior Minister Claude Gueant that the shooter had a camera around his neck and could have been filming the attack, saying it was still only a hypothesis.

    Earlier, Gueant had said the attacker was "wearing around his neck an apparatus" that could be used to film and post video online. He said that gave investigators new clues to the killer's "profile," though he admitted that they don't appear to close to an arrest.

    Philippe Desmazes/AFP/Getty Images

    People cry and react before the funeral convoy carrying the coffins leaves the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school after a funeral ceremony, Tuesday.

    'Very cold'
    Gueant described the suspect as "someone very cold, very determined, very much a master of his movements, and by consequence, very cruel."

    Asked whether the gunman recorded the scene Monday morning, Gueant responded, "We can imagine that." But he added that authorities have not yet found any images of the killings online.

    Meanwhile, hundreds of police combed southern France for the killer -- also suspected of shooting dead three French soldiers -- and NBC News reported that local police were to be issued with guns temporarily. Normally only national police carry weapons.

    French schools held a minute's silence at 11 a.m. local time (6 a.m. ET) to remember the victims. Every school in the Toulouse region was also under guard Tuesday.

    BBC News also reported that France had declared its top "scarlet" terror alert level for the first time.

    Miriam, 8, chased down, killed
    The victims at the Ozar Hatorah school were 30-year old Hebrew teacher Jonathan Sandler, his two children, Arye, 6, and Gabriel, 3; and Miriam Monsonego, 8, the daughter of the school principal,  Toulouse prosecutor Michel Valet said.

    The gunman chased Miriam into the concrete courtyard, stopping her by her hair, The New York Times reported. His gun jammed, but still holding her, he switched weapons and shot her in the head.

    President Nicolas Sarkozy said the killings at the school and those of the soldiers, one of Caribbean and two of Muslim origin, appeared to be motivated by racism.

    "In attacking Jewish teachers and children, there seems to be an obvious anti-Semitic motivation," he said late on Monday. "With the soldiers ... one can imagine that the bloodthirsty madness was linked to racism."

    Manhunt for 'most wanted man in France'

    Sarkozy was to meet with members of France's Jewish and Muslim community. France has the largest population of Jews and Muslims in western Europe.

    Police had not named a suspect but said they were searching the city of around one million for a man they believed could be a trained marksman.

    Neo-Nazi ex-soldier
    Police were looking into the possibility that the gunman could be one of three soldiers dismissed from the army in 2008 for neo-Nazi activities, French magazine Le Point reported.

    NBC News reported that the black scooter used by the gunman at the school had been traced to a theft on March 6 and that video surveillance cameras at the school had picked up the license plate number.

    Hadrei Haredim via Getty Images

    Jonathan Sandler, (second from left) his two children, Arye, 6, (left) and Gabriel, 3, (second from right) are pictured in this undated handout image. All three were killed in Monday's shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France.

    It was the most deadly anti-Semitic attack on French soil in nearly 30 years. In August, 1982, six people were killed in a combined grenade and gun attack at the Goldenberg restaurant in Paris' Marais Jewish district.

    As night fell Monday, students of the Ozar Hatorah Hebrew school gathered with the bodies of the victims for an all-night vigil.

    Windows were shuttered at the school, a five-floor brick building in a leafy residential neighborhood. The wall near the front gate bore bullet marks, and one window was shattered.

    The Associated Press, NBC News and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Four shot dead at Jewish school in France; gun used in earlier attacks

    A mass manhunt is underway for the person who killed four people at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.

    By msnbc.com staff, NBC News and news services

    Updated at 10:30 p.m. ET: The gunman who fatally shot three children a young rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France on Monday remains at large after fleeing the scene on a moped through the city's backstreets. The killer has been described by French media as the "most wanted man in France," since President Nicolas Sarkozy said the bullets from a .45-caliber pistol he used matched one that was used in two previous fatal attacks in the last two weeks.

    "This act is horrific and cannot remain unpunished," Sarkozy said in a televised address, adding that the terrorism alert level in France had been raised to its highest level ever. Sarkozy flew to Toulouse.

    The killer was described as a short, overweight man who behaved calmly and appeared to handle his weapons with ease. He wears a helmet and rides the same stolen scooter. His victims have been ethnic minorities -- Jewish, North African or Jewish -- witnesses have said that in one of the attacks, the killer pushed aside a bystander to get to his victims, the BBC reported.

    According to Le Figaro, a French newspaper, Sgt. Imad Ibn-Ziaten had posted a classified advertisement selling a motorcycle, and the suspect made plans to see it on Sunday, March 11. Ibn-Ziaten waited behind a school in a quiet area of Toulouse, essentially waiting for his killer to show up.

    Because of these details, some fear the suspect may be a serial killer driven by racism.

    "Everything leads one to believe that these were racist and anti-Semitic acts," Toulouse Mayor Pierre Cohen said on BFM-TV.

    The gunman arrived at the Ozar-Hatorah middle and high school around 8:15 a.m. Monday morning and shot at people waiting on the curb for a shuttle, LaDepeche, the Toulouse newspaper reported. He killed 30-year old Hebrew teacher Jonathan Sandler, his two children, Arye, 6, and Gabriel, 3; and Miriam Monsonego, 8, the daughter of the school principal,  Toulouse prosecutor Michel Valet said.

    The gunman chased 8-year-old Miriam into the concrete courtyard, stopping her by her hair, The New York Times reported. That's when his gun jammed. Still holding her, he switched weapons and shot her in the head.

    A 17-year-old was seriously wounded.

    Some 120 investigators were working on a manhunt for the killer and had already identified the license plate of the motorbike used in Monday's attack at the private Ozar Hatorah school, police sources said. The gunman used a second gun when the first jammed, the Toulouse prosecutor said.

    French media said that security was being tightened at all Jewish schools in the country.

    Religious minorities and issues of race have emerged as a prominent issue in France's current presidential campaign. The soldiers killed and injured were of North African and French Caribbean origin.

    The assailant used a heavy-caliber firearm and another weapon. At least 15 shots were fired.

    Nicole Yardeni, a local Jewish official who saw security video of the attack from the single camera near the school gate, described the shooter as "determined, athletic and well-toned." She said he wore a helmet with the visor down.

    "You see a man park his motorcycle, start to shoot, enter the school grounds and chase children to catch one and shoot a bullet into her head," Yardeni said. "It's unbearable to watch and you can't watch anymore after that. He was looking to kill."

    Parents who witnessed the incident -- which happened shortly before 8 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET), as children were being dropped off at the school -- described the scene.

    "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," a distraught father told RTL radio, Reuters reported.

    PhotoBlog: Images from the scene of the Toulouse school shooting

    "I did not find my son, apparently he fled when he saw what happened. How can they attack something as sacred as a school, attack children only sixty centimeters [about two feet] tall?'' he added.

    "It was terrible ... It felt like it lasted a long time," Charles Ben Semoun, a parent of a child at the school, told i-tele television, the Bloomberg news service said.

    It was the worst anti-Semitic incident in France since August 1982, when six people were killed in a grenade attack and subsequent shooting at the Goldenberg restaurant in a Jewish neighborhood on Rue des Rosiers in central Paris. France's 600,000-strong Jewish community is Europe's largest.

    The bodies were brought in hearses to the school Monday night for an evening vigil. All of the dead had joint Israeli-French citizenship and will be buried in Israel, the Israel Foreign Ministry said.

    Monday's shootings come days after three soldiers were killed in two separate shootings in the same area by a man who also escaped from the scene by motorbike.

    On March 10, a gunman shot and killed a paratrooper in Toulouse. Last Thursday, a masked gunman on a motorbike opened fire on three uniformed paratroopers at an ATM machine in Montauban, about 30 miles from Toulouse, killing two and critically wounding the other.

    NBC News, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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