Man shot dead trying to enter Paris police station

[Duque de Bragança]

A man armed with a knife was been shot dead by security forces Thursday after attempting to enter a police station in northern Paris, police sources said.

The shooting took place outside a police station in the Goutte-d'Or area of the French capital's 18th arrondissement, the sources told Reuters.

A witness told AFP he had heard "two or three shots" fired by police.

Paris police confirmed shots had been fired without providing more detail.

Pictures posted on Twitter showed a man, the alleged assailant, lying on the pavement after being shot with what appeared to be a police bomb disposal robot inspecting the body.

The incident took place as France marked the one-year anniversary of last January's terror attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

http://www.france24.com/en/20160107-man-shot-dead-trying-enter-paris-police-station



Assault on Precinct 18? Don't bring a knife to a gun fight.
The Barbès/Goutte d'Or area, near the Gare du Nord (trains to London, Benelux and Germany), has a North African plurality, if not majority population. Other sources mention the attacker said Allahu Akbar. Neighborhood is cordoned.
One year, day for day, after the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

[Legbiter]

Well, by pulling a knife like that, he put himself at an immediate disadvantage.

[mongers]

A man armed with a knife was been shot dead by security forces Thursday after attempting to enter a police station in northern Paris, police sources said.

The shooting took place outside a police station in the Goutte-d'Or area of the French capital's 18th arrondissement, the sources told Reuters.

A witness told AFP he had heard "two or three shots" fired by police.

Paris police confirmed shots had been fired without providing more detail.

Pictures posted on Twitter showed a man, the alleged assailant, lying on the pavement after being shot with what appeared to be a police bomb disposal robot inspecting the body.

The incident took place as France marked the one-year anniversary of last January's terror attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

http://www.france24.com/en/20160107-man-shot-dead-trying-enter-paris-police-station



Assault on Precinct 18? Don't bring a knife to a gun fight.
The Barbès/Goutte d'Or area, near the Gare du Nord (trains to London, Benelux and Germany), has a North African plurality, if not majority population. Other sources mention the attacker said Allahu Akbar. Neighborhood is cordoned.
One year, day for day, after the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

Paris must be a bit on edge today.

I was made aware it was the first year anniversary, because last night on the bbc I saw an excellent documentary on the attacks.

Well worth watching especially for the 'ending', I'll see if I can find a link.

It was called: Three Days of Terror: The Charlie Hebdo Attacks.
Iplayer link here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06vkdxw/this-world-three-days-of-terror-the-charlie-hebdo-attacks#long-description

In November 2015, when gunmen attacked Paris, France declared war on the Islamic State. But that war - and France's 'year of terror' - began a year ago with the attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

With unprecedented access to the French authorities and previously unseen footage, five-time Bafta-winning director Dan Reed reveals the untold story of the massacre and of the first Islamic State strike in Paris at a kosher grocery store.

Key witnesses, police officers and survivors - many speaking for the first time - piece together the dramatic attacks and the unprecedented manhunt that gripped the world for three extraordinary and terrifying days.

Not found it on youtube yet.

[Duque de Bragança]

Interesting update

Paris police station attacker lived in German refugee shelter


Latest update : 2016-01-10

German police on Saturday raided an asylum seeker shelter where they said the man who sought to attack a Paris police station on Thursday had lived.

Police found no indications that other attacks had been planned, they said in a statement following the search at the shelter in western Germany's Recklinghausen.

The police statement did not specify that he was an asylum seeker but a source close to the matter told AFP the man was indeed registered as one.

The man was shot dead by police after trying to storm a police station in northern Paris on Thursday, brandishing a meat cleaver and wearing a fake suicide vest. The attempted attack took place exactly one year since the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks that shook Paris.

Investigations are ongoing in close cooperation with French authorities, said police from the state of North Rhine Westphalia, declining to give further information for fear of compromising the probe.

French investigators said Friday the suspect appeared to have been identified by his family and was said to be a Tunisian named Tarek Belgacem.

His link to an asylum seeker shelter in Germany risks further inflaming a debate over the 1.1 million asylum seekers that the country took in last year.

Tensions were already running high after a spate of sexual assaults and thefts during New Year's Eve festivities in the western city of Cologne, with police saying suspects of the crime spree were mostly asylum seekers and migrants.

Cologne police had said earlier Saturday that they have recorded 379 cases of violence during the rampage that night.

(AFP)

http://www.france24.com/en/20160110-paris-police-station-attacker-lived-german-refugee-shelter

PS: link added

[Richard Hakluyt]

It looks like an idiotic attack to me. Sometimes an attack by a mentally disturbed individual is just an attack by a mentally disturbed individual.

[Duque de Bragança]

It certainly is idiotic, but then terrorists are often mentally disturbed.

Some people were already blaming the police for not taking risks to capture and/or defuse the situation already; I guess some will reconsider their stance.

[Richard Hakluyt]

One of the untoward consequences of all the terrorism is that the security forces will be far less inclined to take chances, one can hardly blame them.

[grumbler]

I'd like to know who sold him the fake vest, and whether he knew it was fake.

I have this dream of a British Secret Service basement workshop where they are making realistic-but-fake suicide vests and slipping them into the suicide vest distribution stream, to demoralize potential suicide bombers.

[dps]

I'd like to know who sold him the fake vest, and whether he knew it was fake.

Maybe he wanted to practice.

[Admiral Yi]