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Man With Knife and Fake Explosives Shot Dead Outside Paris Police Station Man With Knife and Fake Explosives Shot Dead Outside Paris Police Station
(about 3 hours later)
PARIS — Officers fatally shot a man who was wielding a knife and yelling “Allahu akbar” as he tried to attack a police station in northern Paris on Thursday, setting off alarms as France marked the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. PARIS — French police officers fatally shot a man who was wielding a cleaver and yelling “Allahu akbar” as he tried to attack a police station in northern Paris on Thursday, setting off alarms as France marked the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
The attack, a few minutes before noon, prompted the closing of schools, shops and streets. The man’s body lay outside the police station, on the Rue de la Goutte d’Or. The authorities said the man, who was not identified, had lunged at an officer. The man, who has not been identified, arrived in front of the police station on the Rue de la Goutte d’Or at 11:30 a.m. with a meat cleaver, wearing what turned out to be a fake explosives belt. He then brandished the knife and yelled “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” before police officers opened fire. Witnesses said the officers had ordered the man several times to stop and step back before shooting him.
For more than an hour and 20 minutes, the man’s body lay on the sidewalk, covered with a white cloth. A robot was deployed, and after that, two dogs and then a man wearing heavy gear inspected the man’s jacket, fearing that he might have been carrying explosives. The police determined that the man had been wielding a knife that looked like a meat cleaver, and that he had been wearing a fake explosive belt, according to an Interior Ministry spokesman, Pierre-Henry Brandet. The attack prompted the temporary closing of schools, shops and streets. The man’s body lay on the sidewalk outside the police station for more than an hour and 20 minutes, covered with a white cloth. A robot was deployed, and after that, two dogs and then an investigator wearing heavy gear inspected the man’s jacket, before determining that it was a fake suicide vest.
The episode occurred a year after gunmen carried out attacks in and near Paris, including on Charlie Hebdo and on a kosher supermarket, killing 17 people. The assault also comes less than two months after the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks, which killed 130. Investigators found a cellphone on the man, a piece of paper with the flag of the Islamic State on it, and an “unequivocal handwritten claim of responsibility” in Arabic, according to the office of the Paris prosecutor, François Molins.
Mr. Molins’s office said it was investigating the attack as an attempted terrorist assassination of someone in a position of public authority.
The police station is in the 18th arrondissement, a multicultural district that has a large immigrant population but that is also rapidly gentrifying.The police station is in the 18th arrondissement, a multicultural district that has a large immigrant population but that is also rapidly gentrifying.
The attack occurred a little over an hour after President François Hollande concluded a speech to forces at the Paris police department during which he warned that terrorism was still threatening the country. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve visited the station after the attack and praised the “great courage” of the police.
Mr. Hollande thanked police and security forces and paid tribute to the three officers who were killed in the attacks last January. “We will never forget them,” he said. “They died so that we may live free.” “The person who carried out this assault and who died after police were forced to open fire is currently being identified,” Mr. Cazeneuve said.
The episode occurred a year after gunmen carried out attacks in and near Paris, including on Charlie Hebdo and on a kosher supermarket, killing 17 people. The assault also comes less than two months after the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks here, which left 130 dead.
Most of the participants in the Nov. 13 attacks wore explosives vests, six of which were detonated that night: three at the national soccer stadium north of Paris, two at the Bataclan concert hall, and one at a restaurant in central Paris. In addition, a man who died in a police raid on Nov. 18 on a hide-out in the northern Paris suburb of St.-Denis — who has not yet been identified but who investigators say they believe took part in the attacks — also detonated a suicide vest.
The attack on Thursday occurred a little over an hour after President François Hollande concluded a speech to forces at the Paris police department during which he warned that terrorism was still threatening the country.
Mr. Hollande thanked the police and security forces and paid tribute to the three officers who were killed in the attacks last January. “We will never forget them,” he said. “They died so that we may live free.”
Mr. Hollande added that over the past year, nearly 200 people had been barred from leaving France on suspicion of seeking to join terrorist groups in Syria or Iraq and that over 50 foreigners had been barred from entering the country.Mr. Hollande added that over the past year, nearly 200 people had been barred from leaving France on suspicion of seeking to join terrorist groups in Syria or Iraq and that over 50 foreigners had been barred from entering the country.
He also urged the security and intelligence services in France to do better at cooperating with each other.He also urged the security and intelligence services in France to do better at cooperating with each other.
“Faced with these kinds of adversaries, it is crucial that each department work in perfect coordination, in the greatest transparency, and that they share all the information that they have,” Mr. Hollande said.“Faced with these kinds of adversaries, it is crucial that each department work in perfect coordination, in the greatest transparency, and that they share all the information that they have,” Mr. Hollande said.