Pittsburg native one of three Americans who thwarted terror attack on French train.
Pittsburg native reportedly helps detain suspect
PARIS — A gunman opened fire on a high- speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris on Friday, wounding two people before being subdued by three American passengers — including a native Pittsburg man who now lives in the Sacramento area — officials said.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, speaking in Arras in northern France where the suspect was detained, said one of the Americans was hospitalized with serious wounds. Their names were not immediately released.
Philippe Lorthiois, an official with the Alliance police union, said on i- Tele that two of the Americans were soldiers. Another media report indicated the two were Marines.
“We heard a gunshot, and we heard glass breaking behind us, and saw a train employee sprint past us down the aisle,” Pittsburg native Anthony Sadler Jr. said from France. Sadler, a senior at Sacramento State University, told The Associated Press that the injured American was Spencer Stone, of Sacramento, and the other was Alek Skarlatos, of Roseburg, Oregon.
They saw a gunman entering the train car with an automatic rifle, Sadler said.
“As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, ‘ Spencer, go!’ And Spencer runs down the aisle,” Sadler said. “Spencer makes first contact, he tackles the guy, Alek wrestles the gun away from him, and the gunman pulls out a box cutter and slices Spencer a few times. And the three of us beat him until he was unconscious.”
“The gunman never said a word,” he added.
In Washington, the Pentagon said it “can only confirm that one U. S. military member was injured in the incident. The injury is not life- threatening.”
Contrary to early reports, Lorthiois said the attacker did not fire his automatic weapon but wounded one man with a handgun and the other with a blade of some kind.
According to the French newspaper Le Monde, the Americans, in civilian clothes at the time, heard “the sound of a heavy weapon being loaded” while passing a bathroom. When a man carrying an AK- 47 and a pistol emerged, they confronted and disabled him. During the scuffle, the suspect managed to fire three shots, according to reports.
Investigators from France’s special anti- terror police are leading the investigation, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
“As always where an act that could be terrorist in nature is involved, the greatest care and the greatest precision will be used,” Cazeneuve said.
The suspect is a 26year- old Moroccan, according to Sliman Hamzi, an official with the police union Alliance, who spoke on France’s i- Tele.
Sadler called his father, Tony Sadler Sr., of Rancho Cordova, on Friday morning from France. “He told me that they were on a train on their way to Paris and an armed gunman came onto the train, came out of the bathroom with an AK- 47 and another weapon,” the father said.
“With the grace of God, that could have been the end of his young life,” Tony said. “I’m extremely relieved that he was not injured or killed. That has been the dominant emotion all day.”