PARIS – A manhunt was launched against a group of armed attackers who shot and killed two prison officers and injured three more while taking a prisoner from a van in the north of the country. Francethe country’s authorities said on Tuesday.
Hundreds of regional and national police officers were deployed to capture the gang who attacked the two-vehicle convoy at a tollbooth near Rouen, Normandy, at 11 a.m. (5 a.m. ET), Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said at a press conference. They were armed with “heavy weapons,” he said.
Dupond-Moretti said the last time someone died while working in the prison service was in 1992.
The prisoner was identified by the Paris prosecutor’s office as Mohamed Amra, born in March 1994. On Friday he was convicted of robbery in a court in Évreux, south of Rouen. He was also indicted by a court in the southern city of Marseille for kidnapping and false imprisonment resulting in death, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“The attack was carried out by armed men in several vehicles, who managed to neutralize two police officers. The attackers fled with the prisoner,” the Gendarmerie nationale, a police force linked to the French military, told NBC News.
At least 200 police officers and a helicopter were mobilized, the Gendarmerie said. The investigation is in charge of the national jurisdiction against organized crime in Paris.
President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement on X that the attack was “a shock for all of us”.
“The nation stands alongside the families, the injured and their colleagues. Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime so that justice can be done in the name of the French people,” she added.
Dupond-Moretti said the entire country was in mourning. He said one of the prison officers killed had a wife who is five months pregnant. The other had two children who were about to turn 21, he added.
“Everything, and I mean everything, will be done to find the perpetrators of this heinous crime,” he said. “These are people for whom life means nothing. They will be caught, they will be tried, and they will be punished according to the crime they committed.”
Shortly after the attack, a video began circulating on social media showing the aftermath of the attack. At least two bodies can be seen on the ground, surrounded by rescuers.
Another video, apparently taken before or during the attack, shows two masked people dressed in black and armed with what appear to be automatic firearms. The same video shows a vehicle catching fire after colliding with a white prison service van.
Both videos have been verified by NBC News.
Nancy Ing and Elie Petit reported from Paris. Patrick Smith reported from London.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
