A man who threatened police at Gare du Nord in Paris with a knife inscribed with the slogan ACAB has died from gunshot wounds.
The attacker – who has not been identified – suffered “very serious wounds” following the incident at the Gare du Nord on Monday morning.
“He was rushed to intensive care after being shot several times by a police patrol he had threatened,” said a source close to the case.
“There were fears that we would hurt somebody at the station, and this was the reason he was shot.”
The man was declared dead shortly before 9am, having died from his wounds.
A knife examined next to the wounded man bore the political slogan ACAB – one that first became popular among radicals in the USA, and spread abroad.
The shooting happened about 7am, as passengers were boarding a 7.10am Eurostar service to London when police open fired, but it was not allowed to leave.
Eurostar train services to London were immediately cancelled.
Instead, offices cordoned off the area leading up to Eurostar departures, while also preventing other trains from leaving.
No police were hurt during the incident.
Commuters were also on their way to other parts of Europe in the busiest train station in France.
Police on the streets of Paris have been threatened by numerous lone wolf knifemen, as well as gangs of terrorists, over the past seven years.
In October 2019, a radicalised computer operative working at the Paris Prefecture in central Paris stabbed four of his colleagues to death.
The attacker – who was also shot dead – turned out to be a fanatic who kept extremist Al-Qaeda and Islamic State literature and images on his computer.
There were no initial clues that today’s attack was related to terrorism, as another investigating source said: “The wounded man was well known for hanging around the station, and may well have had psychological problems.”
Gerald Darmanin, France’s Interior Minister, posted a Tweet on Monday saying:
“This morning, at around 7 a.m., a police patrol was threatened by an individual armed with a knife on public transport in the Ile-de-France region.
“The police used their weapon, thus removing any danger, for themselves and for the travellers.”
