{"id":15233,"date":"2016-01-08T09:01:57","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T17:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/man-in-fake-explosive-vest-killed-amid-high-paris-tension\/"},"modified":"2016-01-08T09:01:57","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T17:01:57","slug":"man-in-fake-explosive-vest-killed-amid-high-paris-tension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/man-in-fake-explosive-vest-killed-amid-high-paris-tension\/","title":{"rendered":"Man in fake explosive vest killed amid high Paris tension"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2014<\/strong> Police shot and killed a man wearing a fake explosive vest who threatened them with a butcher knife at a Paris police station Thursday, a year almost to the minute after two Islamic extremists burst into the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 11 people and unleashing a bloody 12 months in the French capital.<\/p>\n

The Paris prosecutor\u2019s anti-terrorism unit opened an investigation after police found a cell phone, a piece of paper with an emblem of the Islamic State group, and \u201can unequivocal written claim of responsibility in Arabic\u201d with the man\u2019s body, the prosecutor\u2019s office said. It did not provide details about the claim.<\/p>\n

France has been under a state of emergency since a series of attacks claimed by the Islamic State group killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13, and tensions increased this week as the anniversary of the January attacks approached. Soldiers were posted in front of schools and security forces were more present than usual amid a series of tributes to the dead.<\/p>\n

Officials said the man shot to death Thursday threatened officers at the entrance of a police station near the Montmartre neighborhood, home to the Sacre Coeur Cathedral. Just moments before, French President Francois Hollande, speaking in a different location, paid respects to officers fallen in the line of duty.<\/p>\n

The man at the police station is believed to have cried out \u201cAllahu akbar,\u201d Arabic for \u201cGod is great.\u201d He has not been identified, and Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told The Associated Press that police do not believe anyone else was involved.<\/p>\n

Alexis Mukenge, who saw the shooting from inside another building, told the network iTele that police told the man, \u201cStop. Move back.\u201d Mukenge said officers fired twice and the man immediately dropped to the ground.<\/p>\n

Video shot from a window above the station and provided to The Associated Press shows the man\u2019s body lying on the ground in a pool of blood, a bomb-detecting robot nearby.<\/p>\n

The Goutte d\u2019Or neighborhood in Paris\u2019 18th arrondissement, a multi-ethnic district not far from the Gare du Nord train station, was briefly locked down.<\/p>\n

Nora Borrias was unable to get to her home in the neighborhood because of the barricades. Shaken by the incident, she said \u201cit\u2019s like the Charlie Hebdo affair isn\u2019t over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two schools were under lockdown, and police cleared out hundreds of people in the area. Shops were ordered closed and shop owners hastily rolled down metal shutters. Two metro lines running through the area were halted. They reopened after about two hours Thursday.<\/p>\n

Hollande had said earlier that a \u201cterrorist threat\u201d would continue to weigh on France. The government has announced new measures extending police powers to allow officers to use their weapons to \u201cneutralize someone who has just committed one or several murders and is likely to repeat these crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 11:35 a.m. on Jan. 7, 2015, two French-born brothers killed 11 people at the building where Charlie Hebdo operated, as well as a Muslim policeman outside. Over the next two days, an accomplice shot a policewoman to death and then stormed a kosher supermarket, killing four hostages. A total of 17 people died, as did all three gunmen.<\/p>\n

Hollande especially called for better surveillance of \u201cradicalized\u201d citizens who have joined Islamic State or other militant groups in Syria and Iraq when they return to France.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must be able to force these people \u2014and only these people\u2014 to fulfill certain obligations and if necessary to put them under house arrest … because they are dangerous,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hollande said officers die in the line of duty \u201cso that we can live free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the January attacks, the government announced it planned to give police better equipment and hire more intelligence agents.<\/p>\n

France has been on high alert ever since, and was struck again Nov. 13 by extremists in attacks that killed 130 people at a concert hall and in bars and restaurants.<\/p>\n

Survivors of the January attacks, meanwhile, are continuing to speak out.<\/p>\n

Laurent Sourisseau, the editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdo and cartoonist who is better known as Riss, told France Inter radio \u201csecurity is a new expense for the newspaper budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis past year we\u2019ve had to invest nearly 2 million euros to secure our office, which is an enormous sum,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to spend hundreds of thousands on surveillance of our offices, which wasn\u2019t previously in Charlie\u2019s budget, but we had an obligation so that employees feel safe and can work safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the attacks, people around the world embraced the expression \u201cJe suis Charlie\u201d to express solidarity with the slain journalists, targeted for the paper\u2019s caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a phrase that was used during the march as a sign of emotion or resistance to terrorism,\u201d Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Corinne Rey \u2014 known as Coco \u2014 told France Inter radio. \u201cAnd little by little, I realized that \u2018I am Charlie\u2019 was misused for so many things. And now I don\u2019t really know what it means.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press Writers Sylvie Corbet and Angela Charlton contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2014 Police shot and killed a man wearing a fake explosive vest who threatened them with a butcher knife at a Paris police station Thursday, a year almost to the minute after two Islamic extremists burst into the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 11 people and unleashing a bloody 12 months […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":15234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-15233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15233"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}