Looking awed by the sumptuous gilded surroundings of the U.S. ambassador’s residence here, the three young American men who thwarted an attack on a Paris-bound express train appeared at a news conference Sunday, brushing aside suggestions that they were heroes. He added that he acted out of “survival – and for my friends and everybody else on the train“.
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U.S. airman Spencer Stone says he was awakened from a nap before springing into action and subduing a gunman on a high-speed train with two other Americans he was traveling with.
Another man who also tried to stop the gunman and is French is thought to have has chosen to remain anonymous. “He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end, and so were we”, he said. “So were we”.
Sophie David, the French lawyer appointed to 26-year-old Ayoub el Khazzani, said that her client was “dumbfounded” he was being considered a terrorist.
Sadler sounded skeptical when asked if it might have been a robbery and not terrorism. It doesn’t take eight magazines to rob a train.
“Hiding and sitting back is not going to do anything”, Sadler said. He said that Khazzani was trying to fire multiple shots from his AK-47 but the gun jammed.
The airman said his thumb was reattached during his hospital stay in Lille.
A suspected jihadist gunman overpowered by passengers on a packed Amsterdam-Paris train had visited Syria and was known to intelligence services in several European countries, officials have said. Mooligan wrested the rifle away from the attacker, The Telegraph reported.
Stone, 22, of Carmichael was stabbed with a box cutter during the struggle with El Khazani. “He had a box cutter and he started to go at me with that”.
A fourth passenger helped tie El Khazani until the authorities arrived, Sadler said.
Stone’s leaders at Lajes praised his actions.
“I was the third one to get up and I want the lesson to be learnt that in times of crisis, to do something”, said Mr Sadler.
Mr Stone is also credited with saving a French-American teacher wounded in the neck with a gunshot wound and squirting blood. He has been released and passed on his thanks to the French nurses and doctors. “If it wasn’t for them, I’d be dead”.
The victim is in a “serious but stable” condition and their life is not in danger.
Shortly after the attack, the grandfather of three phoned his wife of 35 years and explained why he had put himself in danger: “You either sit and get shot, or you get angry and do something”, he said.
“As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, ‘Spencer, go!’ And Spencer runs down the aisle”.
French President Francois Hollande spoke with them on Saturday.
“It feels unreal, like a dream”, Stone said.
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He told reporters: “In times of terror like that, please do something”. “Don’t just stand there and watch”.
