Theme 02 · Violent nihilism and the TCC

Case reading, first published in French on LinkedIn. The teenager is a minor, presumed innocent, and is not named. No codes, visuals or account names from the True Crime Community are reproduced. Translations from French and English are mine.

The facts

  • On 12 October 2026, at the Joseph-Lakanal secondary school in Aubagne, a 14-year-old pupil opened fire with a hunting rifle. The head teacher and a teacher were injured; their lives are not in danger. (AFP)
  • According to the prefect, he is "not known for delinquency or radicalisation". (AFP)
  • The national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office (Pnat) took over the case for attempted murders in connection with a terrorist enterprise and terrorist criminal conspiracy. Initial findings point to "the probable adherence to the True Crime Community (TCC) movement". (Pnat statement, as reported by the JDD)

He is a minor and presumed innocent. "Probable" remains an investigative hypothesis.

Defining the TCC

  • For the Pnat: "an ecosystem of digital communities that glorifies the perpetrators of mass killings". (Pnat statement, as reported by the JDD)
  • For the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, it is a community bound more by fandom than by a shared belief system. (CTC Sentinel, 2026)
  • The CTC distinguishes four levels, from mainstream true crime to an extremely small fraction that turns to violence. In the vast majority of cases, the TCC does not lead to radicalisation. (CTC Sentinel, 2026)

In one sentence: a fandom, as for a star, except that the idols are murderers.

Admire, romanticise, attach

  • Participants form parasocial relationships with perpetrators and turn them into misunderstood anti-heroes, tragic figures or romantic interests. (CTC Sentinel, 2026)
  • They dress like their favourite killers, display their photos, create or commission drawings of them. Some call themselves "hybristophiles". (ISD, 2025-2026)

My observation, from the accounts I follow on Tumblr, X and Telegram: admiration is expressed in very strong language, attack dates are commemorated, and symbols serve as signs of recognition. The killer becomes someone close whom one has never met.

Columbine, the template

  • Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, perpetrators of the Columbine attack in 1999, inspired the online "Columbiner" community. The CTC sees it as a precursor of the TCC. (ISD, 2025-2026; CTC Sentinel, 2026)
  • In the United States, of 41 targeted school attacks studied by the Secret Service, 8 perpetrators showed an interest in Columbine. (U.S. Secret Service, 2019)
  • In France, in 2017, Le Monde ran the headline "Le suspect de la fusillade de Grasse fasciné par la tuerie de Columbine". (Le Monde)

My analysis: fascination with Columbine is not new in France. What changes with Aubagne is that a judicial authority reads it as belonging to a community, no longer as an individual obsession.

Aesthetics replace doctrine

  • ISD defines nihilistic violence as violent acts without ideological motivation, driven by a misanthropic worldview, and describes aesthetics substituting for ideology. (ISD, 2025)
  • For the CTC, this violence is deeply performative: recognition by the community is central. (CTC Sentinel, 2026)

My analysis: the young people I worked with in the United States, in hate groups, were looking for belonging and revenge. Here, the same need finds another answer: not a cause, but a killer to imitate and an audience to impress.

When ideology comes back

  • For the CTC, ideology can play a role in the escalation towards violence, but it is not what connects TCC-linked perpetrators. (CTC Sentinel, 2026)
  • ISD describes cases that mix ideological and nihilistic motivations. (ISD, 2025)

My observation: more and more individuals close to incel or antinatalist spheres idealise TCC killers and reinterpret them to give them an ideological background. Violence is glorified, and ideology comes to justify it.

My analysis: the mechanism recalls the martyr in jihadist propaganda: an idealised figure, a community that grants status, an act designed to be remembered. But the direction is reversed. Jihadism starts from a doctrine that produces its martyrs. Here, one starts from the killer and builds a doctrine for him.

No typical profile, but a trajectory

  • A majority of the active users observed by the CTC said they were minors, many between 13 and 16. (CTC Sentinel, 2026)
  • Many describe themselves as suffering from mental health problems and social isolation. (ISD, 2025)
  • Of the 41 school attacks studied by the Secret Service, there was no profile of a student attacker. Most had been bullied, 32 of the 35 documented showed symptoms of mental health issues, and 34 acted at least partly because of a grievance. (U.S. Secret Service, 2019)
41
targeted school attacks studied
8
perpetrators interested in Columbine
32 / 35
documented cases with mental health symptoms
34
acted at least partly because of a grievance

Source: U.S. Secret Service, National Threat Assessment Center, 2019.

My analysis: one does not admire the killer for what he did, but for what one believes one shares with him. Suffering, grievance, isolation, then a model: this is the trajectory of radicalised young people, and it is what makes it identifiable.

Interest is not the signal. The shift is: does he identify, does he imitate, does he announce?

What to remember

  • A deep interest in school shootings is not the same as a desire to commit one. (Raitanen, Tampere University, 2021)
  • All the perpetrators studied by the Secret Service had shown concerning behaviour, and most had communicated their intent before acting. (U.S. Secret Service, 2019)

My analysis: the question is not whether he watches Columbine content, but whether he identifies, whether he imitates, whether he announces. And if an ideology appears, ask whether it precedes the model or comes to justify it.

Sources

All décryptagesTraining on these topics