Collège d'Aubagne: the teenager suspected of having injured two people claimed to be a supporter of the TCC movement on TikTok, fascinated by mass killings

On his TikTok account, which franceinfo was able to consult before it was deleted on Thursday October 15, the teenager suspected of having shot Monday in his college in Aubagne and of having injured two people, claimed in the biography as a supporter of the TCC (True Crime Community) movement, fascinated by mass killings.

In the description of this account, authenticated by a source close to the file as being that of the suspect, the word "hate" was written in Russian. The profile photo was an image that Franceinfo was able to establish as that of a teenager responsible for a mass killing in a Crimean college in 2018.

Concerning the publications, none are created by the student, all are shares of existing videos. We observed an increase in violent content in the days preceding the attack in Aubagne. The closer we get to the act, the more we find videos linked to the TCC movement and in particular to the Columbine massacre which left 12 dead in 1999, in the state of Colorado, in the United States. On the same day of the events, the schoolboy re-shared nearly 40 videos directly linked to the two teenagers responsible for this shooting: content which glorifies the two perpetrators of the shooting but also a lot of content with reference to films or documentaries relating to Columbine.

The franceinfo verification unit was able to analyze the last 2,600 publications from this account: 300 of these contents contain keywords relating to the Columbine massacre or other school shootings. 160 are linked to the TCC movement. Among these contents, 50 mention both themes at the same time.

The teen also shares a lot of video game-related content. The name of the account is also a nickname widely used by gamers. Five days before the incident, we can see that the schoolboy posted a sequence where we witness, in the shoes of the killer, a bloody shooting within a school.

The 14-year-old schoolboy suspected of having fired a hunting rifle on Monday and of having injured the principal of his school and a teacher in Aubagne (Bouches-du-Rhône) was indicted and placed in pre-trial detention on Wednesday. The first elements of the investigation link this minor to the TCC movement. This is the first time that an investigation has been opened in connection with this movement after an act, the national anti-terrorism prosecutor confirmed on Thursday.

As part of this investigation, another 13-year-old teenager was arrested in the Nord department late Wednesday, franceinfo learned Thursday from sources close to the case. This teenager is suspected of having been in touch with the Aubagne schoolboy via TikTok. Investigators will now seek to find out if he too is influenced by the ultraviolent movement TCC, True Crime Community.

According to the elements communicated by the national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office on Wednesday, the TCC is defined as "a virtual network [...] whose members are fascinated by murders and their perpetrators. Within this, there stands out a sub-community dedicated to mass killers, which through the massive diffusion of ultraviolent content tends to desensitize its followers to violence [...] The TCC promotes taking action through intimidation."