Two police officers were seriously injured by gunshot Thursday evening in the central police station of the 13th arrondissement of Paris by a man who grabbed a civil servant’s weapon, after being arrested for the attack with a box cutter on a woman .
The events took place shortly before 10:30 p.m. inside the police station, according to a Source close to the case who specified that one of the two police officers was in serious danger. What the Paris prosecutor’s office, requested by AFP, later confirmed.
A shooting occurring on the premises of a police station is extremely rare.
Around midnight, the Paris police chief, Laurent Nuñez, who was accompanied by the Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau, went to the scene.
Three investigations
He explained to the press that the attacker had been arrested around 10 p.m. in a “building” in the 13th arrondissement for “a very violent attack on a woman” with a “cutter”.
“The police intervened and brought him back here (to the police station) and it was when he was picked up that he stole the weapon” from a civil servant and “seriously” injured two police officers.
The injured civil servants were immediately transported to hospital as was their attacker, himself “seriously” injured by return fire, the police chief said.
“We are very concerned about the state of health (of the two police officers). We are all very worried”, he further underlined, providing his “support to the staff of the 13th police station”, “welcoming their courage and their responsiveness.
He announced that a judicial investigation was underway and the Parisian PJ responsible for establishing “the circumstances” of this tragedy.
Asked by AFP, the Paris prosecutor’s office clarified that three investigations had been opened. Two are entrusted to the 3rd DPJ, one for “attempted murder of the woman”, the other for “attempted murder of persons holding public authority”.
The 3rd investigation was entrusted to the IGPN (the “police of police”) for “intentional violence with a weapon by a person holding public authority”, as is always the case when a police officer uses his weapon .
The prosecution specified that the accused “injured in the chest, had been taken to hospital”. “His vital prognosis is not engaged,” he added.
“The investigations will have to specify in particular the circumstances of the facts, the identity of the accused, as well as his possible links with the female victim,” concluded the prosecution.
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