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Unarmed French police literally retreated in the face of Islamist attackers
Hotair ^ | 01/07/2015 | Noah Rothman

Posted on 01/07/2015 10:28:24 AM PST by SeekAndFind

The two French police officers, who both lost their lives in the effort to prevent the Charlie Hebdo attackers from executing their grim mission, are heroes. Their sacrifice in defense of their fellow citizens is beyond noble, and their bravery will be remembered in the coming days.

It is not a knock on Parisian police but French domestic policy to note and criticize the fact that the first responders who arrived at the scene on bicycles and without defensive weaponry were entirely unprepared to face an ongoing attack by murderous, AK-47-wieldling Islamist gunmen. The first police to arrive at the scene of the attack were forced to withdraw in the face of superior firepower.

The Guardian reported.

“We heard shouting in the street,” Benoît Bringer, who works at a press agency on the same floor as the magazine’s offices, told France Info radio. “We saw hooded men carrying Kalashnikovs entering the building. We called the police. After a few minutes we heard heavy firing – a lot of firing, a hell of a lot. We went upstairs to take shelter on the roof. Then after about 10 minutes we saw two armed men come out on to the street. There was more shouting, more firing.

“Three policemen had arrived on bikes but had to leave because the men were armed, obviously … Then the attackers took off in a car.”

Another, unnamed witness from an office across the corridor said she and her colleagues had heard “a huge boom”. “Then someone opened the door to our office and asked where Charlie Hebdo was. He had a rifle. We backed away. Afterwards he left, we heard gunfire. We went to the windows, there were two men running with guns, speaking in bad French … They were shouting outside, and shooting again. Afterwards I saw someone leaving the building with his hands covered in blood.” [Emphasis added]

It is speculative at this stage, but it is also relatively safe to assume that if those officers had been armed they would have had an opportunity to disable the attackers before they fled. As a result of the lack of preparedness on the part of the Parisian police, the three gunmen who killed 12 and wounded 11 more remain at large. Perhaps this atrocity will result in a review of Paris’s counter-terror planning ahead of the next terrorist incident. It is surely coming.

As an aside, the final paragraph of that block quote is interesting. All morning, cable news analysts in the United States have been assuring their audiences that the audio of the attackers indicates that the terrorists were locals. They spoke perfect French, the analysts asserted, and their accents did not indicate any foreign origin.

But the local Parisians who recalled hearing the attackers speak “bad French” suggests otherwise. Now, comments like these could be simple chauvinism. The majority Muslim areas of Paris are often sequestered from the rest of French society and might have developed their own French dialects (at least to the ear of the native Parisian). But this observation from a witness to this attack at least raises an element of doubt as to just how homegrown it truly was.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: france; guncontrol; gunfreezone; islam; islamists; paris; police
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To: tet68
brainwashing is a terrible thing to behold

Id bet its enough to make those thusly braindead...very very passive

not so for this doggie....


61 posted on 01/07/2015 11:23:25 AM PST by MeshugeMikey ("Never, Never, Never, Give Up," Winston Churchill ><>)
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To: SeekAndFind

Probably through diplomatic pouch from one of the many camel shagger embassies in Paris.


62 posted on 01/07/2015 11:24:47 AM PST by Ajnin (Wolves don't lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.)
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To: MeshugeMikey

I can find nothing of why they stopped, have you found anything?


63 posted on 01/07/2015 11:26:31 AM PST by Irenic (The pencil sharpener and Elmer's glue is put away-- we've lost the red wheelbarrow)
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To: Irenic
nope! perhaps the beheadings in london and elsewhere cowed them into passivity!?




64 posted on 01/07/2015 11:28:11 AM PST by MeshugeMikey ("Never, Never, Never, Give Up," Winston Churchill ><>)
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To: DaveA37

Actually, the receptionist who let them in and several others said that they - at least the ones who spoke to her - spoke “perfect French.” In other words, they weren’t foreigners.


65 posted on 01/07/2015 11:29:15 AM PST by livius
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To: Secret Agent Man

I do, too. These people contribute nothing to our society. Why we have ever allowed them here is beyond me.

Just dealt with a group of them at work as patients.... They were here In search of a better life, so they said .... But partaking in this better life means becoming an upstanding citizen and respecting the laws and people of our country .... Not bending it to their demands. Anything less than swearing an oath to this effect should land them on the first plane back to their countries of origin ..... Then again, they lie when it’s convenient for them to do so.


66 posted on 01/07/2015 11:29:59 AM PST by LibsRJerks
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To: Real Cynic No More

Weapons and equipment isn’t the problem. The problem is and always will be people.


67 posted on 01/07/2015 11:31:53 AM PST by Ajnin (Wolves don't lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.)
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To: gaijin
“Je suis Charlie” bumpersticker:

Given that these folks were probably your Garden variety leftist atheists (actually strike that -- they were much braver than the Garden variety type) - I will pass on that bumpersticker. However I agree with the sentiment to stop lying and not sugar-coat a Satanic Death cult that wants the West dead.

68 posted on 01/07/2015 11:36:16 AM PST by El Cid (Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house...)
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To: baltimorepoet
Actually I don’t like “proportional” responses. The response to savage Islamic attacks should be grossly disproportionate, for example identifying the base of support and then killing a thousand of them for each one of us they kill.

Agree 100%.
You have to hit back with extreme force, wipe them out and take no prisoners! (because some dimwit will let them out, to kill again, heh)

When a bully came up to me in Jr. High, and hassled me, then gave me a bloody nose. I completely went ballistic on him and left him on the ground bleeding. We both got hauled into the Princ. office. I didn't get in trouble, the bully did. And he never bugged me again. :)

of course this was back when schools were sane, but I digress...

I will take your suggestion one step further, get them before they get us! See my tag line.

69 posted on 01/07/2015 11:38:55 AM PST by Coffee_drinker (The best defense is a strong preemptive strike.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Stop or we will taunt you a second time


70 posted on 01/07/2015 11:47:36 AM PST by RonaldReagan4Ever
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To: FatherofFive

I’m pretty sure that big one on the end is Hoss Cartright.


71 posted on 01/07/2015 11:49:25 AM PST by Beagle8U (NOTICE : Unattended children will be given Coffee and a Free Puppy.)
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To: Irenic

I have seen eyes like that before. They were on a water moccasin!
Another time on my ex-wife.
They were both VERY p-s-ed.


72 posted on 01/07/2015 12:04:34 PM PST by GOYAKLA
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To: GOPJ

Superior firepower?

The police were responding to gunmen, and they were unarmed? If the murdering pigs had had knives, they would have had superior firepower over the French Police.

Things are moving down hill more rapidly now than last year.


73 posted on 01/07/2015 12:07:22 PM PST by RinaseaofDs
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To: SeekAndFind

Demolition Man: “We’re police officers! We’re not trained to deal with violence.”


74 posted on 01/07/2015 12:15:01 PM PST by cincinnati65
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To: Beagle8U
I’m pretty sure that big one on the end is Hoss Cartright.

Dan Blocker was born in 1928. This pic was from In the Clutches of the Gang made in 1914.

75 posted on 01/07/2015 12:28:00 PM PST by FatherofFive (Islam is evil and must be eradicated)
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To: SeekAndFind

One of the witnesses quoted the attackers as saying “We are al Queda” in French. I thought Obama had said they were all gone.


76 posted on 01/07/2015 12:39:27 PM PST by JohnBovenmyer (Obama been Liberal. Hope Change)
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To: SeekAndFind

If I’m a French cop I’m demanding a gun or I don’t go back to work.


77 posted on 01/07/2015 12:43:14 PM PST by stuck_in_new_orleans
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To: SeekAndFind

Now those are DeBlasio’s kind of cops.


78 posted on 01/07/2015 12:44:13 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: jayrunner
Why in this day and age, do Britain and France still refuse to arm their police?

Most French police are armed. These may have been the Police Municipale who are basically little more than traffic and parking enforcement. The Police Nationale are responsible for criminal enforcement in the big cities, with the Gendarmerie responsible for smaller towns and the countryside. Nationales are armed with the SIG Sauer SP2022 and, as needed, with the the SIG SG -540 assault rifle.

79 posted on 01/07/2015 12:56:36 PM PST by Bubba Ho-Tep ("The rat always knows when he's in with weasels"-- Tom Waits)
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To: SeekAndFind

Front Line Police should be armed to the teeth


80 posted on 01/07/2015 12:56:39 PM PST by molson209 (Blank)
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