Paris reels as cop killed in terror attack
Paris was struck again in a terrorist attack that left a police officer dead and three other people wounded before police shot the gunman dead on the city’s premier boulevard last night.
The shooting on the ChampsElysees — immediately claimed by the Islamic State — came three days before an election that has focused on terrorism and the flood of Middle Eastern and African refugees and immigrants into Europe, raising tensions as voters prepare to go to the polls.
Investigators searched a home early yesterday in an eastern suburb of Paris believed linked to the attack. A police document obtained by The Associated Press identifies the address searched in the town of Chelles as the family home of Karim Cheurfi, a 39-year-old convicted of attacking a police officer in 2001.
The attacker had been flagged as an extremist, according to police officials. Authorities are trying to determine whether “one or more people” might have helped the attacker, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters at the shooting scene.
The attacker emerged from a car and used an automatic weapon to shoot at officers outside a Marks & Spencer’s department store at the center of the Champs-Elysees, killing one officer and wounding two others. A female foreign tourist also was wounded.
The gunfire sent scores of tourists fleeing into side streets.
“They were running, running,” said Badi Ftaiti, 55, who lives in the area. “Some were crying. There were tens, maybe even hundreds of them.”
“How are we supposed to vote with this kind of danger?” one woman said.
The Islamic State’s statement gave a pseudonym for the shooter, Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, indicating he was Belgian or had lived in Belgium. Belgian authorities said they had no information about the suspect.
French President Francois Hollande said he was convinced the attack was terrorism.
Other attacks on security forces include one at the Louvre museum in February and one at Orly airport last month.
Both conservative contender Francois Fillon, who has campaigned against “Islamic totalitarianism,” and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who campaigns against immigration and Islamic fundamentalism, cancelled campaign events, though Le Pen scheduled another.
Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron offered his condolences. Socialist Benoit Hamon tweeted his “full support” to police.