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According to a source, the man was “very drunk” and brandished a dummy gun shouting “Allahu Akbar” in a Paris suburb.
French police cordon off the area where a drunk man was killed after shouting threatening messages. (AFP)
A drunk man on Sunday was killed by French police outside Paris after threatening officers and shouting “Allahu akbar”, an Arabic expression often shouted by Islamist attackers, police sources told AFP.
According to preliminary information, the man brandished a dummy gun, a source close to the case told AFP. He was “very drunk”, the source said
At around 6.00 am (0500 GMT), police were called to an incident which saw an armed man bang on a door in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, one of the police sources said.
The man threatened the police “by pointing a handgun and shouting ‘Allahu akbar’,” a Muslim expression of faith meaning “God is greatest”, the source added.
A police officer then drew his weapon and shot the man, who died despite the intervention of the emergency services, the source said.
According to another police source, the officer fired his weapon three times, and the man was hit once. The entire incident was captured by the police body camera.
The man, aged 30, committed “apology for terrorism” in 2019, according to police sources.
The case has been referred to the police’s IGPN internal affairs department, a standard procedure.
The police officer who shot the man tested negative for drugs and alcohol.
In 2022, 38 people died in France as a result of police action, including 22 after being shot, according to the latest IGPN report.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)
