French police have shot dead a man allegedly threatening them with a meat cleaver in Paris after initially hitting him with a Taser stun gun. The man, who has not been named, was said to be brandishing the weapon and carrying a notebook with Arabic writing at a tram stop in the capital on Saturday.
When police arrived on the scene around 3am, the man refused to drop the cleaver and proceeded towards the police, prosecutors said. According to initial reports, four police officers fired their pistols a total of about 20 times, they said, adding that none of the police on the scene were injured.
The suspect was born in 1984 in Sudan and had no criminal record, prosecutors said, adding that two investigations had been launched over the man’s action and the police response.
The suspect was wearing an Arab-style robe and carrying the weapon when police arrived on the scene. He refused to drop the cleaver and proceeded towards the police, prosecutors said.
The four police officers who opened fire had been taken to hospital in a state of ‘shock’, the prosecutors said.
Laurent Obertone, a journalist, wrote on X this morning that the events took place around 3am on Saturday at the Butte Duhat Rouge station. The suspect apparently refused to obey orders to stop and ‘brandished a Koranic book’ before threatening the officials. CCTV showed a small number of people standing at the station this morning, and a later shot appearing to show investigators marking off the crime scene.