In Paris, on the night of Thursday to Friday, a man with a chopper was shot and injured by railway security agents whom he had attacked, we learned from a police source. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, contacted by the APF, an investigation was opened for “attempted homicide of a person responsible for a public service mission”.
The events took place shortly after midnight, at the Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand metro station, avenue de France. According to the police, railway security agents (SUGE) were in their vehicle for an operation to secure the station when an individual “approached the driver’s side door, waved his chopper-type weapon and tried to open the door.
The man allegedly tried to attack passers-by
The officers exited their vehicle and surrounded the man. It was then that he “would have tried to attack the railway security personnel with a chopper who therefore neutralized the individual using their service weapon”, explains the police source, recounting the agents’ statements. According to initial findings on site, three of the officers fired “eight rounds” to neutralize the man who was hit by four bullets. Bleeding “profusely” but still conscious, the injured man was handcuffed by an off-duty police officer, who also provided him with first aid. The man was then taken care of by the firefighters and the SMUR and then transported in “absolute emergency” to the Pitié Salpêtrière hospital.
We do not know the motivations of this individual. According to a police source, witnesses claim to have seen this man for the first time, on Avenue de France, carrying his chopper. Later, another witness saw him running after three people, still with the chopper in his hand, at the MK2 Bibliothèque cinema. It was after the three people managed to escape that the individual headed towards the metro station where he was neutralized.
An investigation was therefore opened for “attempted homicide of a person responsible for a public service mission”. When he was picked up by emergency services, the man did not have any identification papers on him. The investigations were entrusted to the 3rd judicial police district.