Gunman Holds Paris Pupils, Teacher for Two Hours
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PARIS — A lone gunman took schoolchildren and their teacher hostage in a suburban Paris primary school for about two hours Monday before he was captured, police said.
The man entered the Louis Aragon school in the northern Paris suburb of Clichy about 4:30 p.m., when school ends for the day. The number of pupils in the class was given variously as 23 and 30.
A large police force surrounded the building and set up an emergency headquarters under the orders of the government prefect and public prosecutor, the local mayor’s office said.
Police said the man released seven children 75 minutes after the siege began.
France-Info radio said one of the seven carried a message from the apparently deranged kidnapper demanding that he be put in contact with a nurse who worked at a local hospital.
But the police spokesman said at the time: “We don’t know his motives, which seem obscure.”
In May 1993, another suburban Paris school was hit by a hostage-taker, whom police shot and killed.
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