PARIS — Swapping places with a woman being held hostage, the French police officer entered the supermarket where a gunman, claiming allegiance to the Islamic State, had already shot and killed two people on Friday.
While he did not carry a gun as he went inside, Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame did bring in his phone, which he left on a table with the line open so that his colleagues outside could listen in, according to Gérard Collomb, France’s interior minister.
The officer spent about two hours inside the Super U market facing the gunman, Radouane Lakdim, a 25-year-old French citizen born in Morocco, officials said.
After officers heard more gunshots through the phone, they rushed into the market and killed Mr. Lakdim. Colonel Beltrame, 44, who had been “seriously wounded” by gunfire, Mr. Collomb said, died overnight of his injuries.
Colonel Beltrame’s mother said that she knew it was her son inside the supermarket as soon as she heard that a lieutenant colonel had exchanged himself to free a hostage.
“I am not surprised that it was him,” she said in an interview with the French radio network RTL. “He has always been like this.” His mother, who was not named, described the officer as someone whose reason for being was to defend others’ lives. “He would tell me, ‘I am doing my job, Mom, that’s all,’” she added.
The officer’s brother, Cédric Beltrame, told RTL that he thought his brother had known he had little chance to survive when he decided to go inside the market. “He was very aware of what he was doing; he didn’t hesitate for a second,” Mr. Beltrame said.
France on Saturday mourned Colonel Beltrame’s death, with President Emmanuel Macron praising his courage and announcing that a national tribute would be organized in his memory.
read more : https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/24/worl ... trame.html
Arnaud Beltram was deeply religious himself, a Catholic. But obviously he has not the same God…
