PARIS — A Greek-American from Oregon was one of two U.S. Servicemen and an American friend who likely prevented a massacre on a French train when they tackled and subdued a heavily-armed man police said was a known Islamist supporter.
Alek Skarlatos, a National Guardsman who served a tour of duty in Afghanistan, along with fellow U.S. soldiers Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler, charged the man who was carrying an AK-47, a pistol and a box cutter and subdued him before he could kill anyone.
The New York Times said the men, called “heroes” by French authorities, tackled the man, a 26-year-old Moroccan who later said he was only attempting to rob passengers on the high-speed Paris-to-Amsterdam run.
The soldiers grabbed him by the neck and beat him over the head with his own automatic rifle until he was unconscious, one of them said in television interviews, although not before Stone, an Airman First Class, suffered serious slashes from the box cutter, the same weapon used on the 9/11 airplane terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001.
The suspect entered the train car carrying an AK-47 and a handgun, according to the Americans. “I looked over at Spencer and said, ‘Let’s go,’” said Skarlatos. “And he jumped, I followed behind him by about three seconds. Spencer got the guy first, grabbed the guy by the neck, I grabbed the handgun,” Skarlatos said.
“Spencer ran a good 10 meters to get to the guy,” Skarlatos told television interviewers. After they tackled the suspect, Skarlatos said he pulled the handgun away from the man and threw it to the side.
He then grabbed the Kalashnikov, which was lying at the suspect’s feet, he told television interviewers. The suspect was yelling at the two to give him back his gun, said Sadler, but Skarlatos began beating him with it.
Skarlatos said he “started muzzle-thumping him in the head with it.” Other passengers joined in, and the injured Stone held him in a chokehold until he lost consciousness, Skarlatos said.
GUNS DIDN’T WORK
With Stone badly cut, Skarlatos only then found the suspect’s guns had malfunctioned as they were charging him.
“He had pulled the trigger on the AK, the primer was just faulty, so the gun didn’t go off, luckily,” Skarlatos said. “And he didn’t know how to fix it, which is also very lucky.”
Spc. Alek Skarlatos, Oregon National Guard
The gunman also hadn’t been able to load his handgun. “There was no magazine in it, so he either dropped it accidentally or didn’t load it properly, so he was only able to get what appeared to be one shot off,” Skarlatos said.
The man wounded at least one passenger before the two men subdued him. The Americans were decorated with an honor by the French city of Arras, where the train pulled in and the men were being hailed as heroes throughout the country, which has suffered deadly attacks from Islamist terrorists.
An amateur video shows the suspect on the ground with his legs in the air and his hands tied behind his back, while another man — apparently Stone, kneels shirtless and evidently in pain. Groans are heard, and a voice saying, “Dude, I tried to shoot him.”
The incident took only a couple of minutes and the Americans got lucky when the gunman’s rifle malfunctioned before he could fire. Passengers said they saved many lives with their quick action.
“It could have been a real carnage,” said Chris Norman, a British businessman who also helped restrain the suspect after he had been subdued, the Times reported.
Norman, interviewed on television, said: “The guy actually came up, he pulled out a cutter, started cutting Spencer. He cut Spencer behind the neck, he nearly cut his thumb off. We eventually got him under control.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The attack began when a French passenger headed for the toilets in car No. 12 came upon the gun who was carrying the Kalashnikov over his shoulder, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
The passenger “courageously” tried to tackle the man, who fired off several shots, the minister said, hitting another passenger, of dual French-American citizenship. A train employee ran through the carriage.
Norman and the two Americans looked up, saw the man with the Kalashnikov and ducked down into their seats. It was then that the two Americans decided to take action. The train was still moving at top speed.
Despite bleeding heavily, Stone went to the aid of the gunshot victim, Sadler said, according to the Times. “Even though he was injured he went to help the other man who was injured,” he said. “Without his help he would have died.”
QUICK THINKING BRAVERY
“We were scared for sure, but, I mean, adrenaline mostly just takes over, because I didn’t have time to think,” Skarlatos said. “I didn’t realize or fully comprehend what was going on. It felt like it was a dream or a movie.”
French authorities are questioning the attacker and are expected to speak to at least one of the Americans about what happened. Counter-terrorism police are leading the investigation, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Cazeneuve, speaking in Arras, said the Americans “were particularly courageous and showed great bravery in very difficult circumstances,” and that “without their sangfroid we could have been confronted with a terrible drama.”
He called for caution before jumping to conclusions. French authorities are on heightened alert after Islamic extremist attacks in January left 20 people dead, including the three gunmen.
In June, a lone attacker claiming allegiance to Islamic radicals beheaded his employer and set off an explosion at an American-owned factory in France, raising concerns about other scattered, hard-to-predict attacks.
Sadler, a senior at Sacramento State University, was traveling with childhood friends Stone, of Carmichael, California, and Skarlatos when they heard a gunshot and breaking glass.
Sadler told The Associated Press that they saw a train employee sprint down the aisle followed by a gunman with an automatic rifle.
RUNNING INTO DANGER
“As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, ‘Spencer, go!’ And Spencer runs down the aisle,” Sadler said. “Spencer makes first contact, he tackles the guy, Alek wrestles the gun away from him, and the gunman pulls out a boxcutter and slices Spencer a few times. And the three of us beat him until he was unconscious.”
Another passenger helped tie the gunman up, and Stone then quickly turned to help another passenger who had been wounded in the throat, stopping his bleeding until paramedics came, Sadler said. He said, “The gunman never said a word” during the attack.
Skarlatos, 22, had returned from a deployment in Afghanistan in July, and Stone is stationed in the Azores, according to Skarlatos’ step-mother Karen Skarlatos.
She spoke with her step-son immediately after the incident. “He sounded fine, but he was intense — he sounded like he had just thwarted a terrorist attack.”
“Alek and Spencer, they’re big, brave, strong guys and they decided they were going to tackle him. And they did,” she told the AP from Oregon. “Spencer got a couple good slices on him. But they were able to subdue him while the train was still moving.”
The Arras Mayor praised the “extraordinary reflexes” of the Americans and awarded them special medals overnight. “I wanted them to feel recognition not only from the city but also from French people in general and from all people who are against terrorism,” he said.
“We avoided the worst, but the situation was tough, for them and for everyone,” he said.
A third person, French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade, suffered a minor injury while activating the train’s emergency alarm, Lorthiois said.
Europe’s major rail stations, such as Paris’ Gare du Nord and Brussels’ Gare du Midi, are patrolled by soldiers armed with rifles, but passengers can board most high-speed trains without passing through metal detectors or having their bags searched or showing their passports.
(Material from the Associated Press was used in this report)
The post Three U.S. Soldiers, one a Greek-American, Subdue Terrorist in France appeared first on The National Herald.