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CNN Live At Daybreak

Look at Who Came to Rescue in Deadly Shooting in France

Aired March 27, 2002 - 05:03   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And now for exactly who came to the rescue in that deadly shooting in Nanterre, France, New York City firefighters. Yup, they were in France visiting Paris firefighters for a little R&R. They responded in Nantere, a working class suburb just northwest of Paris with a large university student population.

The incident occurred at about 1:15 a.m. and about 7:15 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast. That would be the time here.

CNN's Robin Oakley joins us live on the phone from Paris -- first of all, tell us what happened.

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this was the worst shooting incident, Carol, in France for many years. As you've said, late at night, in the early hours of the morning. There were 53 people there and the mayor called an end to the meeting of the municipal council. At that point a gunman stood up in the public gallery. He'd got a .357 Magnum and an automatic pistol. Apparently he emptied three magazines, killing eight people, seriously wounding 14 people and injuring 30 people in all.

Witnesses said that he was completely calm. He simply shot at anything which moved. Eventually the man was wrestled to the ground and arrested. Obviously the local community was in a state of shock and the local mayor, Jacqueline Fraysse, said that she was looking at the bodies of her elected colleagues with their lapel badges still attached to them and all she could say to her community was to be courageous.

But the intriguing element in this, Carol, as you've said, is that there were some New York firefighters doing their R&R! With colleagues in Paris, learning to forge their links to form a training partnership with the Paris firemen. And they were there as observers when the Paris firemen were called out to this tragedy and two men in particular, Dennis Colope (ph), a Battalion 11 chief in Manhattan, and George Idiert (ph), the bureau training battalion chief, they were there. They were able to help out on the scene and to see how the French firefighters implemented their so-called red plan whereby the firefighters take control of a situation like this -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Were you able to talk to those New York City firefighters?

OAKLEY: No, we haven't had a chance to talk to them yet. We're hoping to do so a little bit later on. They're part of a wider group who are over here visiting the Paris scene. And on July the 14th, the French Independence Day, it's planned that a battalion of New York firefighters will parade as part of the proceedings then and some 50 family members of the victims on September the 11th will be coming over for that occasion -- Carol.

COSTELLO: This is bizarre that they happened to be there because this is an unusual occurrence in France. You don't usually hear about violence like this, right?

OAKLEY: Well, certainly you don't hear of violence on this kind of scale, though there is a presidential election going on here in France at the moment, of which the -- in which the biggest issue is security, as they call it, crime on the streets. And both Jacques Chirac, the current president, and Lionel Jospin, the prime minister who's challenging him for the job, are putting law and order issues, tackling crime at the very head of their programs.

But whatever they do in terms of tackling street crime it seems unlikely it would be able to affect an incident last night, which nobody can find any motive for this attack and though the man who's been arrested for it was a political activist, one witness said that he appeared to have some kind of mental problems. And it's very difficult to see how you can ever counter this kind of motiveless, sudden random violence -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Robin Oakley reporting live for us from near Paris this morning. We thank you for that report.

We do have pictures of those American firefighters who helped out near Paris. The firefighters had been invited to France as a show of solidarity after the September terrorist attacks. These pictures were shot just before the firefighters left for Paris last week. The firefighters agreed to go into the field to work with French firefighters and they certainly were put to another test near Paris.

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