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Stabbing attack in Lyon and rush to stop speculation...
The suspect, whose motives are unexplained, was arrested and taken into police custody for "murder and attempted murder,” the Lyon prosecutor's office told AFP. Authorities initially reported a second suspect on the run, but the prosecutor and a police source later denied the existence of a second perpetrator. The attack happened at 4:30 pm at Laurent Bonnevay metro station. The suspect was initially detained by passers-by, including TCL transit workers. “I sensed that something was not right and when I got to the lift I saw that some people had stopped someone,” a 39-year-old mother-of-one at the scene told Euronews. “I saw some people in front of the lift who shouted at a man ‘stay there’ and ‘don’t move’. There were maybe three men who had stopped him, it wasn’t police.” She added: “I thought it was a robbery at first. Someone else, I’m not sure if it was a security guard, said to me: ‘Get away from here’. I saw a man with some blood on his t-shirt.” Among the injured, three were critical and five less seriously hurt, according to the prosecutor's office. In addition, 20 others were treated for shock. "There was a gentleman at the 57 [bus] stop who started stabbing people in all directions," a young girl with a blood-stained tank top told AFP. "He managed to touch, to open a person's stomach. He stabbed a guy in the head,” she cried. The mayor of Lyon, Gérard Collomb, quickly went to the scene and called for people not to speculate about the nature of the attack. He said the suspect had targeted "people waiting for their buses in a high-traffic area" and was on his trying to flee through the metro station when he was apprehended.
The detained man claimed to be Afghan but also gave at least two different identities, according to a security official. The attack might have been terrorism-related, the official said, but authorities consider it more likely the suspect was mentally unstable. The victim who died was a 19-year-old man, and it was unclear if he knew the attacker, according to a local police official. The national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office has not been asked to participate in the investigation at this stage. An official with the Lyon regional administration said national security forces weren’t involved in the search, which includes a few dozen local police officers and a helicopter.
The arrested man was not carrying an identity card, or any other documents, but he has said he is from Afghanistan. Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2019-09-01 |
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