French train tragedy: Obama hails heroic Americans who took down gunman

Relatives of the three Americans who tackled and disarmed a gunman on a high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris say they are proud of the men and relieved they weren’t killed during those chaotic moments. And a British businessman jumped in to help subdue the gunman. Two people were wounded – one of the Americans who intervened, and another passenger, a dual French-American citizen, hit by chance by a gunshot, Cazeneuve said.

Stone was seen Saturday leaving a hospital in Lille where he was treated for a hand injury. Sadler told The Associated Press that they saw a train employee sprint down the aisle followed by a gunman with an automatic rifle.

French President Francois Hollande also praised the heroism of those on the train, and is planning to receive Stone, Skarlatos and Sadler at the Elysee Palace on Monday.

The gunman slashed Stone, a U.S. Airman, several times with a box cutter. “Everybody just started beating the guy while Spencer held the chokehold until he went unconscious”.

“It all happened so fast”, Sadler said.

The governor said that Alek Skarlatos “is the pride of Oregon”.

It appears that Ayoub El-Khazzani may have been growing more radical in his views.

There was some confusion over where the suspect had lived and traveled before he seeded chaos on the high-speed train.

The AP quotes an official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the suspect had traveled to Syria and then returned to France.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, speaking in Arras in northern France where the suspect was detained, said one of the American passengers was hospitalized with serious wounds.

“It’s unlucky that they were at that incident, but lucky for everyone else that they were the ones who were there at that particular time and that everything happened the way it did”.

A third person, French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade, suffered a minor injury while activating the train’s emergency alarm, Lorthiois said.

French authorities have been on heightened alert for terrorism since the January attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newsweekly and a Paris kosher supermarket left 20 dead, including the three attackers. The authorities will also boost patrols and security checks at other global train stations.

A heavily-armed gunman previously flagged by intelligence services who was overpowered by passengers in a crowded train said he was “dumbfounded” by accusations of terrorism levelled against him, his lawyer said Sunday. The official also said that the French spotted El-Khazzani in Berlin on May 10, headed to Turkey, and informed their Spanish colleagues. 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.

A British business consultant, 62-year-old Chris Norman, also assisted in subduing the man, and said he thought his gun may have malfunctioned.

He added: “To the French medical team who reattached my thumb, my tendons and nerves and everything like that, I just wanted to say thank you”.

“I grabbed the handgun, got that away from the guy and threw it. Then I grabbed the AK-47 (Kalashnikov), which was at his feet, and started muzzle-bumping him in the head with it”, Skarlatos said. He had a magazine full. Got a box cutter. “The president expressed his gratitude to these three individuals for their heroic actions forestalling an even greater tragedy”.

Reporter: Long-time neighbors, skarlatos and stone’s mothers saying they were not surprised.

She spoke with her step-son immediately after the incident.

He said: “We ended up by tying him up, then during the process the guy actually pulled out a cutter and starting cutting Spencer”.