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Gianluca
CASSERI
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Shooting rampage - Race hate crime
Number of victims: 2
Date of murders:
December 13, 2011
Date of birth:
1961
Victims profile:
Samb
Modou, 40, and Diop Mor, 54 (Senegalese
street traders)
Method of murder:
Shooting (Smith & Wesson
.357 Magnum)
Location: Florence,
Tuscany, Italy
Status:
Committed suicide by shooting himself the same day
On 13 December 2011, an armed attack occurred in
Florence. Two market traders from Senegal, 40-year old Samb
Modou, and 54-year-old Diop Mor, were killed by Gianluca Casseri, who
wounded three other Senegalese traders in another market.
According to Florentine prosecutor Giuseppe Quattrocchi,
the killer shot himself dead as he was approached by police in a car
park. The attack was racially motivated according to authorities. The
attack also occurred during the 2011 Liège attack, which started on
the same day.
Timeline
The first shootings were at the Piazza Dalmazia
market on Tuesday morning, where two market traders were shot dead and
one injured. The killer then fled in a car and wounded two more
vendors at the San Lorenzo later that day. He shot himself when
confronted by armed police.
Response to shootings
After the shootings some people protested, marching
to the Prefects' office, demanding justice and a representative met
the prefect. Some Senegalese met in the Duomo square to pray.
CasaPound, an Italian far-right group, described
him as a sympathiser but not a member.
The attacker
The attacker was a 50 year old accountant from
Pistoia who had a history of involvement in far-right politics. In
2010 he published an historical novel La Chiave del Caos, co-authored
with Enrico Rulli. He also published a newsletter for fans of J. R. R.
Tolkien.
Wikipedia.org
Florence street vendors shot dead by lone gunman
An Italian gunman with fascist sympathies went on a
rampage in Florence on Tuesday, killing two African street vendors and
wounding three others in broad day light before shooting himself dead.
By Nick Squires - Telegraph.co.uk
December 13, 2011
Gianluca Casseri, 50, caused panic when he opened
fire on a group of Senegalese street traders at a market in Piazza
Dalmazia, on the northern outskirts of the city, killing two men and
seriously wounding another.
He then jumped into a white car and drove off.
Witnesses said the owner of a newspaper stall tried to block him but
the gunman told him that unless he got out of the way he would be the
next victim.
Casseri appeared a short time later at San Lorenzo
market, in the centre of Florence, where he opened fire again with a
large .357 Magnum hand gun, wounding two more Senegalese hawkers.
As dozens of armed police officers closed in, he
then drove into an underground car park and turned the gun on himself,
shooting himself in the mouth as he sat in his Volkswagen Polo.
Police said Casseri, from the town of Pistoia in
Tuscany, had links to a far-Right, anti-immigration movement called
Casa Pound.
Founded in Rome in 2003, it has around 5,000
members across Italy and draws its inspiration from the fascist regime
of Benito Mussolini.
Casseri was described by associates as a withdrawn,
solitary figure who worked as an editor on a magazine specialising in
fantasy and horror stories.
“I heard the shots but I thought they were
fireworks. Then I turned around and I saw three men on the ground
surrounded by blood,” said a vendor at the scene of the first
shooting.
Florence and other large Italian cities host a
shifting population of African street vendors who sell traditional
handicrafts and fake designer handbags to tourists.
After the shootings, a group of around 200
Senegalese traders staged a demonstration, shouting “Racists!” and
“Shame, shame”.
The mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, expressed
solidarity with the immigrant community and said the city had been
“shaken by the lone act of a crazed and pitiless killer.”
The three wounded men were being treated for chest
and abdominal wounds in Florence’s Santa Maria Nuova hospital.
Florence gunman shoots Senegalese street vendors
dead
Far-right sympathiser Gianluca Casseri, 50, kills
African migrants before shooting himself dead
Tom Kington - Theguardian.com
Tuesday 13 December 2011
A lone gunman with extreme rightwing sympathies has
gone on a shooting spree in Florence, killing two Senegalese street
vendors and wounding three others before killing himself.
Gianluca Casseri, 50, an accountant, first shot
dead two vendors and wounded a third with a .357 Magnum at the crowded
Piazza Dalmazia street market on the outskirts of the city on Tuesday
morning.
He then fled in a car after threatening to shoot a
stall holder who attempted to stop him, reappearing later in the day
at the central San Lorenzo market where he fired at two African
vendors, wounding both.
Police officers found Casseri back in his car in
the car park of the market, where they fired warning shots before he
reportedly shot himself dead.
Described as a solitary type who had recently moved
to Florence from a small Tuscan town, Casseri was a fan of fantasy
comics and fiction including Tolkien. Last year he published a
historical novel.
The Italian far-right, anti-immigration
organisation Casapound said on Tuesday that Casseri was a "sympathiser"
who had frequented one of its centres in Tuscany, holding talks on his
book.
Around 300 Africans marched in protest at the
killings, demanding to see Casseri's corpse. "Don't tell us he was a
madman," said one, "because if he was he would have killed whites as
well as blacks".
A vendor at Piazza Dalmazia said: "Senegalese lads
often sell here, they don't make any trouble and no one expected
this."
Italian man kills two Senegalese traders in
Florence
BBC.co.uk
December 13, 2011
An Italian man has opened fire in two markets in
central Florence, killing two Senegalese traders and injuring three
others.
The attacker, 50-year-old Gianluca Casseri,
belonged to a far-right group, Italian media said.
He killed two men and injured a third in Dalmazia
Square before opening fire in San Lorenzo Square, wounding two.
Casseri was later found dead in an underground
car-park, having turned the gun on himself, police said.
Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, denounced
"this blind explosion of hatred" and called on Italian authorities and
society to "combat in the bud every form of intolerance and to
reaffirm the tradition of openness and solidarity in our country".
The mayor of Florence described the shooting spree
as that of a deranged person acting alone.
"These are the actions of a lone killer - a lucid,
mad and racist killer," Matteo Renzi said, adding that such behaviour
was out of character for the city and had shocked it to its core.
Casseri is reported to have calmly got out of a car
in Dalmazia Square and opened fire, killing the two Senegalese in the
market, and injuring a third.
"I heard what I thought were fireworks but when I
turned around I saw three men bleeding on the floor," a market trader
who saw the attack told La Repubblica.
As shoppers and traders fled in panic, some people
tried to pursue Casseri, but he escaped in his car.
Later he began firing at other Senegalese traders
at a market in a second square near the city's cathedral - one of the
city's largest - injuring two more people.
Dozens of Africans living in the city - many of
whom make a living selling knick-knacks and fake designer bags to
tourists - have marched through the city centre in protest at the
killings, knocking over mopeds, bins and street signs.
A published author of science-fiction novels,
Casseri is reported to have belonged to a far-right association called
Casa Pound.
The group sought to distance itself from Casseri
saying it did not support any type of violence.
Fabio Barsanti, a regional co-ordinator for the
group, described Casseri as "lonely" and "living in his own world" but
"not crazy".
