“I’d rather die being active”.
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He is going to meet the American and other citizens who helped subdue the gunman, his office said in a statement Saturday. They are being attended to by emergency services. Anthony and his other friend Alek Skarlatos, a Roseburg, Oregon, Army man, joined the scuffle. However, the suspect held in France has not been officially identified.
He said one of the Americans was hospitalized with serious wounds.
French investigating police check for clues on the train platform in Arras, France.
French counter-terrorism officials Saturday identified the man as a Moroccan linked to Islamic militants who was known to intelligence authorities in three countries.
Stone, who is in the Air Force, was also commended for helping an injured train passenger, a French-American, bleeding from a gunshot wound. “Got the handgun away from the guy and threw it, and then I grabbed the AK-47, which was at his feet”, Skarlatos said.
“I looked up, I saw a guy carrying an AK-47, or at least I assumed it was some kind of machine gun anyway”, he said.
“Alek just yells, ‘Spencer go!’ and Spencer just gets up within five seconds of the guy being in the vehicle and just rushes back there”, said Sadler.
Sadler, a student at Sacramento State University, further described how the men tackled the culprit, wrestled his AK-47 from him and beat him with it until he was unconscious.
Stone’s traveling companions say he intervened to immobilize the suspect, and the gunman stabbed Stone with a box-cutter.
“He pulled out a box cutter and cut Spencer a couple of times but beside that we just tried to do whatever we could”.
The young National Guard reservist wrapped up a tour of duty to Afghanistan in June and was in Europe to decompress for a month with friends, according to relatives.
Norman said he was relieved no one died.
The weapons of the gunman were said to include a Kalashnikov, a knife, an automatic pistol and cartridges.
El-Khazzani had been on government officials’ radar before Friday’s attack.
“The gunman by no means stated a phrase”, he added.
France has been the scene of several terror attacks this year, including Charlie Hebdo magazine shooting and an attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris. He was charged with terrorism offenses, which he denies. Experts have long said the trains are a potential target for attacks. “He was relatively thin and not that strong so I didn’t have too much difficulty keeping him pinned down”. A British passenger told reporters in Arras that he also helped subdue the suspect. “Give me back my gun!'” said Sadler.
A third man – French actor Jean-Hughes Anglade – was also wounded and is said to have raised the alarm.
A Brit and an American are said to be “seriously wounded”.
“It was nearly his instinct to take care of the threat and then help the injured people”. He required five stitches.
Anglade accused the train personnel on Saturday of having fled the scene of the struggle, abandoning the passengers and cowering in the engine auto. “Without them, we would all be dead”. “In vain…. No one answered”.
“If it wasn’t for them, bad things could have happened”, Skarlatos said.
According to reports the Brit and the American seem to have been specifically targeted. “Somebody came in”, Grunberg recalled, and told passengers, “You have to get off the train”. It was really nothing more than that.
He said: “I really could see us all dying because we were all prisoners in that train, it would have been impossible to escape from that nightmare”. Some were proposing them for the Legion of Honor.
“I was astounded by how calm he was”, he said.
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“The prime minister proposes an urgent meeting of transport and interior ministers from Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands to reinforce anti-terrorist measures, notably identity and baggage controls”, Michel’s office said after a meeting of his security council.
