Police officer shot dead in Paris suburb day after Charlie Hebdo attack
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Version 0 of 1. A police officer has died after a fatal shooting in a suburb south of Paris on Thursday morning. A man has been arrested and another man is on the run after two people, including the officer, were shot in Montrouge, around 5km from the city centre. No link has yet been established with the Charlie Hebdo attack, which saw 12 people killed in the satirical magazine’s Paris offices on Wednesday. According to Agence France-Presse, police sources confirmed that the female police officer, who worked in traffic control, was shot in the back and had died. Another man, thought to be a municipal worker, was injured. The shooting happened in the Parisian rush hour just after 8am local time (0700 GMT) in the area of Montrouge, a commune 5km south of Paris. Witnesses reported seeing a collision between two cars before two gunmen emerged, at least one armed with an automatic weapon. AFP reported that the officer had stopped to investigate the traffic accident when the firing started. Paris police said the second victim was a street sweeper. “There was an officer in front of a white car and a man running away who shot,” said witness Ahmed Sassi, who saw the shooting from his home nearby. He said the shooter wore dark clothes but no mask. “It didn’t look like a big gun because he held it with one hand,” Sassi said. Police say they don’t believe the attack is linked to the Charlie Hebdo attack. The minister of the interior, Bernard Cazeneuve, who went immediately to the scene, said it was far too early to say whether the incident was related to the Charlie Hebdo attack. Il est beaucoup trop tôt pour dire si ce faits divers est lié à l attaque de Charlie Hebdo, selon le ministère de l intérieur Journalist Oihana Gabriel tweeted that one man hadbeen arrested in relation to the shooting in Montrouge, while a secondman had fled the scene. French radio station RTL has reported that the arrested man is of African origin, 52, and does not meet the description of either of the Kouachi brothers, who are currently the prime suspects in the fatal attack. The man was not armed at the time of his arrest, but according to severalwitnesses a second man fled with an automatic weapon. Une personne a ouvert le feu à 8h à malakoff avec une arme automatique #portedechatillon Roads around the shooting were closed and police, including French military police, were at the scene. French police are continuing a massive manhunt for two brothers, French nationals Said Kouachi, 34, and Chérif Kouachi, 32, suspected of killing 12 people on Wednesday at Charlie Hebdo in a presumed Islamist militant strike. |