Paris officer ‘between life and death’ after police station shooting

PARIS: One of two officers shot and seriously wounded by an attacker at a police station in Paris was fighting for his life Friday, as senior officials expressed their support.

On Thursday night, a man who had been arrested for allegedly attacking a woman with a box cutter shot the pair in the French capital’s 13th district after grabbing one of their weapons.

Shootings in police stations are very rare, and senior officials from the interior minister to the mayor of Paris offered their sympathies.

One of the two policemen, shot in the abdomen, was “between life and death” on Friday morning, said Paris police prefect Laurent Nunez.

The other officer was injured in the back, said a police source. Prosecutors said both are aged 33.

Nunez said the policemen had responded to an “extremely violent attack” on a 73-yearold woman who was seriously injured.

“The man was obviously very agitated,” Nunez said.

The policemen took him to the police station and had him blow into a breathalyser when the attacker grabbed one of the weapons, said Nunez.

The suspect was wounded in the chest by return fire and hospitalised. He and the woman he wounded were still in hospital on Friday.

A police source described the attacker as an “Asian” male.

The prosecutor’s office said three investigations had been launched - including “the attempted murder of the woman” and the “attempted murder of persons holding public authority.”

The Paris public prosecutor’s office said the 32-year-old suspect was not previously known to police and the courts. He faces life in prison if convicted.

The policemen could not be interviewed at the moment, a representative of the Paris public prosecutor’s office told AFP, confirming the lifethreatening injuries of one of them.

Police do not know whether the man knew the woman he had attacked, Nunez said, adding that the officers called to the scene had to break down the door of a flat.

Neither the prefect nor the public prosecutor said how the attacker managed to get hold of the service weapon of one of the officers.

Neighbourhood patrol officers are equipped with Sig Sauer 9 mm semi-automatic pistols.

The loaded weapon was carried by the officer in “a double safety holster”, a senior police officer said.