Man shoots 2 officers in Paris police station after grabbing gun

A man arrested for allegedly attacking a woman with a box cutter shot and seriously wounded two officers in a Paris police station on Thursday after grabbing one of their weapons.

Published: 10 May 2024 07:56 CEST

Man shoots 2 officers in Paris police station after grabbing gun

A cordoned off area outside a police station in the 13th district of Paris. (Photo by Fabien DALLOT / AFPTV / AFP)

The incident happened in the French capital’s 13th district shortly before 10:30 pm on Thursday night.

One of two officers shot and seriously wounded at a police station in Paris was fighting for his life Friday, the police chief of the French capital, Laurent Nunez, said.

The man was arrested for “a very violent attack on a woman” with a box cutter.

The policemen took him to the police station and had him blow into a breathalyser when the attacker grabbed one of the weapons, said Nunez. He then seriously wounded the pair of officers.

Both officers were immediately transferred to hospital.

“[The officer’s] life is still in danger,” Paris police prefect Laurent Nunez told broadcaster France Info.

Shootings in police stations in France are very rare.

The prosecutor’s office said three investigations had been launched – including “the attempted murder of the woman” and the “attempted murder of persons holding public authority.”

The third was being carried out by the IGPN, the national police’s internal affairs department, to look into the use of “intentional violence with a weapon by a person holding public authority”, as is routine when an officer uses their weapon.

Nunez did not provide any information about the attacker.

Police do not know whether the man knew the woman he had attacked, adding that the police officers called to the scene had to break down the door of the flat, he said.

The suspect was wounded by return fire and hospitalised. His life is not in danger, according to prosecutors.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.