Two police officers are dead in Paris after a man stabbed them to death in their home Monday. Their attacker filmed the killings before police shot him.
Police commander Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, 42, was outside his home late Monday when 25-year-old Larossi Abballa repeatedly jabbed a knife into his stomach. He took Salvaing’s wife, a police administrator, and her 3-year-old son hostage, eventually killing the woman.
Police report that Abballa was filming the attacks in a 12-minute video posted to Facebook using its live-streaming service. He appeared unsure of what to do with the boy. The child was found alive when police killed Abballa after a three-hour standoff.
French journalist David Thomson tweeted a screenshot of the video:
Au début de son Facebook live, le tueur de #Magnanville commence par prêter allégeance à Abu Bakr al Bagdadi pic.twitter.com/HGRa946gpz
— David Thomson (@_DavidThomson) June 14, 2016
French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday that the incident was “incontestably a terrorist act.” According to Hollande, there is a large-scale threat of terror attacks in France.
Abballa’s attack came in response to the Islamic State's demands for attacks on non-Muslims in their homes. The attack took place 35 miles west of Paris, where 130 were killed by Islamic State members in November.
Before he killed the couple at their home, Abballa prayed at his local mosque until the rector, Mohamed Droussi, asked him to leave. Droussi told Associated Press the man spent a long time reading the Quran and was the last person to exit the building.
A video released by the Islamic State's Amaq news agency showed Abballah in the victims’ house. Amaq identified him as an Islamic State fighter. In the clip, the attacker said that he had killed the couple and the police were coming for him. The video was edited to leave out any footage of the family.
Police officers were allowed to take their service weapons home with them after the attack occurred. They arrested three people during the investigation.
Abballa was sentenced to three years in prison in 2013 because he was recruiting jihad soldiers in Pakistan. His Facebook profile is no longer online, and his apartment is under investigation. About 18 hours before the attack, he posted a message saying, “Some will say we see evil everywhere!”