Car rams police van on Champs-Elysees, armed suspect may be dead, police say

[leftynyc]

Last edited Mon Jun 19, 2017, 12:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: cnn

Paris (CNN)Police took down an armed man after a car intentionally rammed into a police van Monday on the iconic Champs-Elysees in central Paris, authorities said.

The small white car caught on fire after the collision and the driver may be dead, France's interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters Monday afternoon. The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an anti-terror investigation into the incident, Brandet said.


Update: Suspect is dead. Car had weapons and explosives:

Gerard Collomb, France's interior minister, addressed reporters Monday afternoon, saying that the Champs-Elysees attacker's car contained weapons and explosives.
"Enough to allow him to blow up this car," Collomb said.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/19/europe/paris-police-operation/index.html

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/19/europe/paris-police-operation/index.html

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Could have been so much worse.

[Aristus]

1. It always amazes me how European countries are able to deal with terrorist attacks using LEO's

rather than attacking a defenseless nation half a world away.

That's why it will never happen over here. The conventional wisdom among the people in charge of looking like someone is in charge is that if it's good for Europe, it must be bad for the US.

[leftynyc]

2. Not sure what you're talking about

Law enforcement took care of the San Bernadino terrorists, the Pulse nightclub terrorists, and the person who wanted to bomb Times Square in NY.

[Aristus]

4. But there are always calls to invade someone, ban a lot of someones,

and get Rambo-ed up because Rambo always wins his Hollywood movies...

[leftynyc]

5. Always?

Perhaps you can link me to when there were calls to invade something after each of those events. My memory fails.

[suffragette]

3. Yes, it looks like he was trying to blow up a convoy of police. Could have been much worse.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/19/champs-elysees-sealed-off-car-hits-police-van-paris

Eric Favereau, a journalist with the newspaper Libération who was on a motorbike behind the convoy, said he saw the police vans at a standstill near the Grand Palais exhibition hall and a car blocking their path, followed by an explosion.

Favereau said he saw flames coming from the car and police smashing its windows and dragging the driver out. He said some police then pulled the man on to the ground while others used fire extinguishers to put out the blaze.

[Baclava]

6. Driver dies after ramming car into police vehicle on Champs-Elysees in probable terrorist attack

PARIS — A car exploded as it crashed into a police vehicle on Paris’s famed Champs-Elysees on Monday in what authorities called a probable terrorist attack.

Police were treating the incident as a deliberate act, and the Paris prosecutor opened a terrorism investigation.

The driver, whose identity was not immediately released, was killed in the crash, Gerard Collomb, France’s interior minister, told reporters at the scene. No one else was injured, Paris police sources said.

Police said the attacker — who was 31 and from the northwestern Paris suburb of Argenteuil — was known to French authorities, the Associated Press reported. He was reportedly listed on the government’s “Fiche S,” a dossier of people suspected of posing a threat to national security.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/police-vehicle-rammed-on-champs-elysees-in-possible-terrorist-attack/2017/06/19/fde74cae-54ff-11e7-840b-512026319da7_story.html?utm_term=.956cae02b936