Lare facts, qualified “heinous act” by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, performed on rue d’Enghien, near a Kurdish cultural center, in a popular shopping district of the Kurdish community.
An investigation has been opened into the counts of murder, intentional homicide and aggravated violence. The investigations have for the time being entrusted to the criminal brigade of the Parisian judicial police, we learned from the Paris prosecutor’s office.
“There are three deceased, one person in a state of absolute emergency, two people in a state of relative emergency and the respondent who could be arrested, is also injured, especially in the face”detailed the prosecutor of the Republic of Paris Laure Beccuau, in front of the press.
The arrested man was taken into custody shortly after the incident. His motives were not immediately known. The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office and its services came to the scene but there is no “no element that would favor the need for their referral”added the prosecutor.
According to two police sources, the man arrested, a 69-year-old retired train driver of French nationality, is known for two attempted homicides committed in 2016 and December 2021. The prosecutor declined to comment on the motives of the alleged shooter. “As for the racist motives of the facts, these motives will obviously be part of the investigations which have just begun”she continued, however.
On the move in the North of the country, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin indicated on Twitter that he was returning to Paris “following the dramatic shooting that took place this morning”. “All my thoughts go out to the relatives of the victims”he continued.
Following the dramatic shooting that took place this morning, I am returning to Paris and will go there. All my thoughts go out to the loved ones of the victims. The author was arrested.
— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) December 23, 2022
On the spot, the emotion was strong around the street partly cordoned off by a large police force.
Members of the Ahmed Kaya cultural center were in tears, hugging each other for consolation, an AFP journalist noted. Some, addressing the police, shouted “it’s starting again, you’re not protecting us, they’re killing us”.
At the intersection of rue d’Enghien and rue d’Hauteville, stretchers were calmly brought to the scene of the shooting and a security perimeter was set up by the police, noted an AFP journalist. . Present at the time of the attack, Selma Akkaya, a Kurdish journalist and activist, told AFP that“There are six people injured” with among them, “a famous Kurdish singer”. The perpetrator, according to her, shot “in the direction of a hairdressing salon”.
“Seven to eight shots in the street, it’s total panic, we stayed locked inside”testified to AFP a shopkeeper from a neighboring building wishing to remain anonymous.
“We saw an old white man come in and shoot in the Kurdish cultural center, then he went to the hairdresser next door”at the corner with the Cour des Petites Ecuries. “We took refuge in the restaurant with the employees”, testified Romain, the deputy director of the restaurant Pouliche Paris, in the street, reached by telephone. Rue d’Enghien and the neighborhood have many restaurants, bars and shops and its sidewalks, like those of the adjacent streets, are usually teeming with passers-by.
According to another witness, a resident of the neighborhood who was passing in the street and questioned by AFP, “there were people in a panic who were shouting at the police: + he’s here, he’s here, come on + pointing to a hairdressing salon”.
“I saw the police enter the living room where I saw two people on the ground, injured in the legs, I saw the blood”he added describing “people in shock and panic”. The Ahmet Kaya Center, so named in homage to the famous eponymous singer, is an association under the 1901 law whose objective is to “promote the gradual integration” of the Kurdish population living in Ile-de-France.