Paris Terror Attack: police officer shot dead on Champs Elysees

Firearm in Paris attack compared to ‘war weapon’
A French government spokesman says the assailant who opened fire on a Paris police van was armed with an automatic firearm akin to a “war weapon.”

President Franois Hollande said: “A national tribute will be paid to this policeman who was killed in such a cowardly way,” he said.

“A passerby was hit. The assailant was neutralised by other police officers. The entire area has been cordoned off. The people present have been evacuated.”

Mr Hollande said police were convinced that the attack was “terrorist in nature”.

François Fillon, the conservative presidential candidate, confirmed on Thursday night that he was cancelling campaign trips on Friday, and added: “The fight against terrorism must be the absolute priority of the next French president.”

Forensic teams were filmed combing a car believed to be that of the gunman.

One eye witness said: “It went incredibly fast. It really lasted 30 seconds. There were around 10 people around, and I think that we were very lucky as if there hadn’t been police here, it would have been the crowd who took the bullets.

“In the event, it was as confrontation with police, otherwise it would have been a gunman against helpless people.

“The Champs wasn’t really full, which was lucky. I just saw that the policemen were instantly on it, and that the gunman was hit straight away.”

Another witness said: “He came out of his Audi, he got out a Kalashnikov, I heard six shots fired, we thought it was bangers, then we realised what was happening.. Then I saw the gunman fall.”

“He could have targeted us on the pavement and killed several in a volley of bullets, but he went for the police first and they instantly returned fire and he fell down dead.”

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10:55 p.m.

Two police officials say the assailant who shot a police officer to death and wounded two others on Paris’ Champs Elysees had been flagged as an extremist.

The officials had no other details about the attacker. He was shot to death after opening fire on a police van.

They spoke on condition of anonymity to share information about the ongoing investigation

— By Lori Hinnant

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10:40 p.m.

French prosecutors have opened a terrorism investigation into the attack on police officers on Paris’ famed Champs-Elysees boulevard.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said counterterrorism investigators are involved in the probe into the Thursday attack that left a police officer and the attacker dead.

Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet says that police officers killed the attacker. He said one police officer was killed and two others were seriously injured and hospitalized.

Paris police spokeswoman Johanna Primevert says unidentified gunman appeared to be alone when he allegedly opened fire on a police vehicle.

French President Francois Hollande has scheduled an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve following the shootings.

The shooting happened as the country is under a state of emergency from a series of extremist attacks.

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10:25 p.m.

A Paris resident says the gunfire that erupted on the French capital’s famed Champs-Elysees shopping district sent scores of tourists fleeing into side streets.

Badi Ftaiti, a Tunisian-born mason who has spent three decades in Paris, said the attack that officials say left one police officer dead and another wounded didn’t panic him.

But the 55-year-old says visitors to the French “were running, running….Some were crying. There were tens, maybe even hundreds of them.”

Asked whether the attack was evidence that “Paris isn’t Paris” anymore, as claimed by Donald Trump, Ftaiti said the U.S. President is “barking up the wrong tree.”

He says: “Paris is Paris. It’s America that’s not America.”

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10:22 p.m.

President Donald Trump says Thursday’s fatal shooting in Paris “looks like another terrorist attack.”

Paris police say a gunman has killed a police officer and wounded another before being killed himself in an attack on the Champs-Elysees shopping district.

It was unclear how Trump concluded that terrorism may have been a factor. Paris police have yet to announce a motive,

Trump is also offering condolences from the U.S. to the people of France.

He calls the attack a “terrible thing” and says “it never ends.” He says people must be strong and vigilant.

The attack came three days before the first round of balloting in France’s presidential election.

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10:19
Gunman ‘fired six times then hid behind lorry’

A witness said he saw the gunman fire six times and then hide behind a lorry. “He fired at the police and then he crouched behind the lorry. Then he got up and ran and was shot by the police.”

Forensics officers in white boiler suits with hoods were deployed on the Champs-Elysées.

President Hollande is about to make a statement after chairing a government crisis meeting.
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10:10 p.m.

Paris police and soldiers have sealed off the area around the Champs-Elysees after an attack on police, ordering tourists back into their hotels and blocking people from approaching the scene.

Emergency vehicles blocked the wide avenue that cuts across central Paris between the Arc de Triomphe and the Tuileries Gardens, normally packed with cars and tourists.

Subway stations in the area were closed off on Thursday night while police secure the scene.

Security forces are more widespread in Paris since deadly Islamic extremist attacks in recent years, and France remains under a state of emergency.

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10:05 p.m.

The French Interior Ministry says the shooting attack on the famed Champs-Elysees boulevard in Paris deliberately targeted police officers guarding the area.

Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said on BFM television that a man came out of a car and opened fire on a police vehicle.

One officer was killed and another was wounded.

Brandet says the police officers were “deliberately” targeted.

He says police are securing the area but there is “no other police operation underway” in the popular area.

Brandet says it’s too early to say whether the attacker might have had an accomplice, and said authorities are studying multiple potential motives.

Speaking in Washington during a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, U.S. President Donald Trump said the shooting in Paris “looks like another terrorist attack” and sent condolences to France.

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9 p.m.

Paris police say a gunman has killed a police officer and wounded another before being killed himself in an attack on the Champs-Elysees shopping district.

Paris police spokeswoman Johanna Primevert told The Associated Press that the attacker targeted police guarding the area near the Franklin Roosevelt subway station Thursday night at the center of the avenue popular with tourists.

The attack came three days before the first round of balloting in France’s tense presidential election. Security is high preceding the vote after police said they arrested two men Tuesday in what they described as a thwarted terror attack.

The incident recalled two recent attacks on soldiers providing security at prominent locations around Paris, one at the Louvre museum in February and one at Orly airport last month.

A witness identified only as Ines told French television station BFM that she heard a shooting and saw a man’s body on the ground before police quickly evacuated the area where she works in a shop.

A French television station hosting a televised event with the 11 candidates running for president briefly interrupted its broadcast to report the shootings.

None of the candidates immediately commented.

Soruce: / Yahoo News