A video shot by a member of the public has emerged showing police officers firing into the cabin of the 19-tonne truck as a man, thought to be the alleged terrorist sits at the wheel of the vehicle. The two have not been named by authorities.
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Reports indicate that a truck plowed into crowds watching a fireworks display on France’s Bastille Day national holiday on the Nice seafront.
Eric Ciotti said on BFM TV that police killed the driver “apparently after an exchange of gunfire”.
Nice regional president Christian Estrosi said: “At the moment that he was shot dead by police, he had fired several times”. The country has also declared three days of national mourning. “There is a chain of complicity”.
The attack marks the third time France has endured gruesome carnage on its own soil in the past year and a half.
Footage shows people running for their lives during the terror attack on Thursday night. She saw the police trying to tell him he couldn’t drive there.
“We are left without words when we think how much hatred and evil there is in the world”, said Reiner.
“I saw bodies flying like bowling pins along its route”. I will never again go out into a crowd like that.
President Hage Geingob today sent a letter of condolence to his French counterpart, Francois Hollande, after last night’s attacks in Paris during that country’s Bastille Day celebrations.
Hollande also said he would activate those who had once served in the military and the gendarmerie to help relieve police and active-duty soldiers. A pink girl’s bicycle was overturned by the side of the road.
Armenian officials first reported two deaths, but later said just one death was confirmed.
European Council President Donald Tusk said Europe “will stand united with the families of victims, the French people, and the government in the fight against violence and hatred”.
France has long known it is a top target for the Islamic State group. “In September 2014, then-IS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani referred to ‘the filthy French”, telling Muslims within the country to attack them in any way they could, including “crush them with your auto”.
I have asked my Deputy National Security Adviser to chair a COBR meeting of senior officials to review what we know and what we can do to help. More importantly, knowing numerous revelers in one of France’s biggest tourist destinations were likely foreign, within the hour, emergency instructions were being tweeted by the Gendarmerie in four different languages. The state of emergency, originally scheduled to end July 26, was in place stemming from the January and November 2015 attacks that, together, left nearly 150 people dead.
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Similar equipment was later used to deadly effect in the terrorist strikes in Paris and Brussels.
