Shootout was like a ‘horror movie’
Witness describes man taunting officers
The young women ran for their lives, diving for cover into the Beach Point seafront bar. On the street outside a terrorist, seemingly with a suicide belt strapped to his chest and wielding a knife, sauntered past. Police were taking pot shots at him.
Fitzroy Davies, a judo instructor from Wolverhampton, England, who had been enjoying a meal in the bar, pulled out his phone and i nstinctively began filming what he would later describe as a “horror movie.”
About a minute earlier and 400 yards away, a police officer, who some eyewitnesses said was a woman, had shot dead four of the jihadist’s accomplices despite being outnumbered by them, in a remarkable act of bravery.
It was being reported that one of those shot by police in Cambrils was 17- year- old Moussa Oukabir, the prime suspect in the Barcelona massacre that had taken place eight hours earlier.
At the beginning of the 64- second video, four gun shots can be heard and the terrorist collapses to the ground. The attacker staggers back up, ignoring the police shouts to get back down. At one point he begins laughing at them and taunting them. A further six shots can be heard before the attacker finally falls to the ground a second time. His death Friday brought to an end the terrorist attack on the seaside resort of Cambrils.
The incident at Cambrils, 100 kilometres south of Barcelona, began at 1: 30 a. m. local time when an Audi A3 car was seen speeding into the town. Inside the car were five jihadists. Strapped to their waists were fake suicide belts; they were armed with machetes, axes and knives.
The car reached the seafront promenade beside the Cambrils Yacht Club, where police had been stationed to guard tourists at the bars and restaurants that line the strip.
The Audi plowed i nto pedestrians, injuring up to four people. The car then tried to mount a curb but in doing so flipped into the air and landed on its roof. One report said it had first collided with a police car before careering out of control.
The terrorists crawled out of the car, brandishing their weapons. One officer from the police car suffered a broken l eg and a head wound. His colleague, reacting with lightning speed, pulled out her pistol and shot four of the terrorists dead. The officer was being called a hero last night.
“To kill four people, even if you are a professional, is not easy to digest,” said Josep Luis Trapero, a Catalan police chief. The fifth attacker — the one captured on Davies’s camera phone — fled the scene. He stabbed a 63- year- old woman from Zaragoza, Spain, in t he neck, who later died from her i njuries. Two f amily members were also injured before officers in plain clothes finally caught up with him.
Davies, who had been attending a training camp with eight other judo coaches, recorded the events as they unfolded.
He said: “We were sitting at the beach bar having something to eat when some girls ran in with fear on their faces and I saw people running down the street. I got up and saw a guy standing on the grass at the edge of the beach about 25 feet away. He had something that looked silvery over his body which could have been a suicide vest and was holding something in his hand. Around 30 seconds l ater four officers jumped out of a car and came between me and him. They had their guns drawn and were shouting at the guy; that is when I knew this was for real. The next thing there were about 10 shots, crack, crack, crack, like a pop gun and he fell to the ground, but two seconds later he stood back up again and stepped over a fence from the grass on to the street and came at the police.”
He added: “They were backing off and he was smiling at them as he charged towards them. He was behaving strangely like he was on drugs, ranting and raving as he went up and down the street.
“Then they fired again and he fell down. This time he stayed down.”
Davies likened the scene to “a horror film,” adding: “Particularly when he jumped back up after being shot and started laughing at the police. I can’t get that out of my mind.”
Police in Cambrils said they could not be certain whether the attackers had c ome f r om outside t he beach town or had a base there.
Asked by The Daily Telegraph whether t hey believed there could still be members of a cell in the resort, an officer, who declined to be named said: “I would not rule it out.”