Return to Transcripts main page

AT THIS HOUR

Reports: Man Attacks Police Near Notre Dame In Paris. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired June 6, 2017 - 11:00   ET

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


[11:00:05]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I am Kate Bolduan. We are following the breaking news out of Paris at this moment. Police, we are told, have shot and injured an attacker outside the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. This is according to AFP News citing sources there.

Sources also tell Reuters that the attacker went after police with a hammer. Paris police have tweeted, asking the public to avoid this very popular tourist attraction, this very popular area. Police are saying, please avoid this area right now.

And joining me at this moment, Art Roderick is here, a former U.S. Marshal and CNN law enforcement analyst, and Mike Baker, a former CIA operative here with me.

Art, layout for me what would be the protocol be at this moment? You're talking about one of the most visible landmarks in Paris, one of the most visited historic sites in Paris, and police basically trying to have it on lockdown at the moment, telling people to avoid the area. What's the protocol right now?

ART RODERICK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (via telephone): I mean, the protocols have been laid out pretty well by law enforcement and security forces there around that area. I mean, that is one of the most visible landmarks in Paris, so any time there's any type of attack, they do have a standard protocol that they go into.

And here we have an individual using a hammer, a pretty crude weapon. It's almost as if it's a suicide by cop in this particular instance. What's interesting is that the individual is still alive, which is great that they can get some deep intel from him as to what his motive is.

That's going to be the key part here, what is his motive. I mean, you have to jump right to the assumption that this is some type of terror attack, but confronting security forces that are armed is pretty much, as we all know, a suicide mission.

BOLDUAN: Yes, but also, attacking law enforcement, attacking the public with anything you can get your hands on is also one of the directives that we have heard recently in recent times, right, Art, from terrorists. RODERICK: No, no, absolutely. We've been through this scenario, unfortunately, for the past year and a half or so, where this information has been put out on the internet to grab a knife, grab any type of weapon at all, grab a vehicle, and do as much damage as you can.

The fact that they're attacking security forces, hopefully trying to inflict some damage there, is something a little different, although we have seen it in the past. But to me, it seems like this is a scenario that when you attack a law enforcement officer with a handgun, you're not going to get very far.

BOLDUAN: All right, I just want to bring us up to date. There are a lot of little details coming in. Lots, though, yet to be known, as this is unfolding as we speak. Paris police do tell CNN that we have confirmed that a man has attacked a policeman with a hammer. That policeman shot this man. He says for the moment, the man is wounded, not dead. We do not know the severity of this man's injuries at the moment.

Let me bring in Mike Baker, joining the conversation, a former CIA operative at the moment. Mike, this comes at a time when Europe's on high alert, the United States is on high alert, but especially Europe is on high alert. If you're in your old post speaking to your intelligence colleagues right now, where are the conversations?

MIKE BAKER, FORMER CIA OPERATIVE: Well, in counterterrorism, you tend to be a little bit -- I hate to say this -- fatalistic. You know you'll never be able to stop everything, right. So your job is to do everything possible in concert with law enforcement liaison partners to minimize disrupt and prevent.

That's what you're trying to do, but in the back of your mind, you know you can't stop everything. Look, they've dumbed it down to the point, where as you pointed out, Art pointed out, it's a hammer, it's a knife, it's a truck.

And it's fine, because from their perspective, every attack is a win, every attack advances the ball from ISIS or al Qaeda's perspective. Now, again, we're at the beginning of this.

BOLDUAN: Exactly right.

BAKER: It's a very fluid investigation.

BOLDUAN: Exactly.

BAKER: So, the good news, as I pointed out, is that the attacker is still alive, hopefully. That will allow for interrogation. That will allow for, hopefully, operational leads. And what are they looking for? Well, obviously, the identity, obviously, the motivation, but also associates. And is there anything else behind this particular individual? And again, what motivated him?

BOLDUAN: Right. BAKER: It matters to us. From ISIS' point of view or al Qaeda, if it goes in that direction, they don't care. They don't care whether he's a true believer or whether he's just a zealot or, sorry, somebody who just latched on to their ideology. It doesn't matter that I'm as wrong as --

BOLDUAN: Even in the last five minutes before he decided to go --

BAKER: Exactly. Exactly.

BOLDUAN: Right. Stand by with me, Mike, Art. Let me go to Melissa Bell. She's been covering this breaking news in Paris. Melissa, what are you picking up at the moment? What are you hearing from police? What's the latest?

MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, still very sketchy details about this ongoing police operation, but that is what we're hearing that this man was wielding just a hammer. And this really fits into a pattern of what we've seen in Paris really over the course of the last few months.

[11:05:04]In February, you'll remember a man attacked those military personnel guarding the Louvre Museum armed with a machete. Then in March, a man attacked military personnel in Oraley.

Again, something that seemed like a suicide mission, going straight after those military personnel who had been on the streets of Paris, of course, deployed in extra great numbers as a result of the state of emergency that France remains under.

And then, of course, there was just before the election in April another man attacked specifically, went out on the Champs Elysees, could have caused much more harm than, in fact, he did, and chose instead with his Kalashnikov to attack a police vehicle.

And if this does turn out to be another in that series, again, we're seeing a man armed with the crudest of devices, simply a hammer this time, and going straight for those policemen and women or military personnel who have been guarding Paris' monuments.

So, I think this could prove -- and of course, we have to be cautious at this stage because we don't know what this man's motivations were and this is an ongoing police operation. A great deal of panic, we're hearing, around Notre Dame Cathedral.

This is one of those parts of Paris that tends to have large crowds around it, lots of tourists milling about, visiting Paris' iconic cathedral. So, you can imagine the scene, since we're also hearing that as a result of this hammer attack, police fired back, shooting, although apparently not killing, the assailant.

BOLDUAN: Yes, you can imagine the chaos out of necessity that created in that very crowded area. I mean, 14 million visitors to the Notre Dame Cathedral every year. You can imagine how many people would have been there today. Melissa, if you could stick with me as well, I want to show you some new images just coming in. I'm seeing them with you for the very first time. Obviously, it appears we're looking at Paris police. Can we drop the banner, guys, so I can see the rest of the photo?

I would assume that this would be then surrounding the suspect, surrounding the attacker, but you cannot see much detail in that. We'll continue to get new images as they continues, so stick with us, folks.

Again, more images coming in as we're getting new detail about a man attacking police outside the Notre Dame Cathedral. Art, as I'm looking at these new images coming in, Melissa laid out really perfectly, kind of reminding us all that this could -- and it's very early on.

But this could fit into a pattern they've seen in France, in Paris specifically, of crude weapons and attacking police where they can, when they can. With that in mind, in just the last months, the examples that Melissa laid out, has the police posture changed, you believe, because it?

RODERICK: Oh, absolutely! I mean, you know, we learn every time from one of these attacks how to change our law enforcement tactics. But I have to say that, you know, in the bigger picture, looking at this type of attack, we would much rather have them attack law enforcement than the public.

Obviously, if he was able to get to the unarmed public, within the cathedral there would have been a lot more injuries. But we've learned from every one of these, but the terrorists also learn also.

I mean, the attack in London to me, I went immediately back to the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, where the individual had talked about explosives, which caused the delay in law enforcement responding to these particular scenes.

So, each one of these, law enforcement does learn something new, they change their tactics and adapt to the new methods that the terrorists are using.

BOLDUAN: Mike, the latest we know, of course, is that he attempted to attack police with a hammer. Policemen shot back, shot him, and wounded him. We don't know how severely injured this person is at this point. What's the first thing that they're going to do? What's the first thing that when the intelligence folks can get their hands on this person they need?

BAKER: First thing you do when you get your hands on anybody in this situation is to find out whether they know of any other attackers or any other imminent attack. You want to know if there's any other threats coming down the pike. And in this case, you know, if it's just the individual --

BOLDUAN: Like, how do you establish -- because here's a key question. This is all happening in realtime. BAKER: Right.

BOLDUAN: Police, you can imagine -- we don't have our cameras there yet, but you can imagine there was chaos in the plaza outside Notre Dame Cathedral. When do they know, when will they get to a point, what do they need to have to be reassured that it's OK for folks to go back in?

BAKER: As Art mentioned, the protocols are you secure the area, obviously. You want to ensure there's nobody else in there, no other perpetrators, no other attackers. Once you do that and you clear the scene of evidence, then you know, in a place like Notre Dame, where you know, it's a hard place to control the crowds, frankly, you --

BOLDUAN: And remember, it's isolated by the river, you know.

BAKER: Right, right.

BOLDUAN: This is an isolated area as well.

BAKER: But this is jammed.

BOLDUAN: Exactly right.

BAKER: And so, what they'll do is undoubtedly, once they finish the forensic work they've got to do around the site, then it will get back to business as normal around the cathedral, but the key is, again, once you've determined whether there's any other threats, whether this individual's associated with anybody else, whether he knows of anything that's coming around, you know, there's all the work that goes in behind this.

[11:10:09]They've got to establish his identity, start looking at known associates. Is he somebody who's been on the radar screen as we had with a couple of individuals from the London Bridge attack in London?

BOLDUAN: That's right.

BAKER: And they step through this. The unfortunate reality is that whether we're talking about here in the U.S. or whether we're talking about the U.K. or France or Germany, law enforcement and the intel community, they are very experienced at this by now, and so they know how to do these investigations.

They do, it's unsatisfactory. They do take some time. But we can see with every attack, frankly, the process is sped up because, you know, it's just, we're having too much practice, frankly, around all of this.

But they'll get to the bottom of this. They'll understand who this individual is, and I suspect by, you know, two, three hours from now, we'll probably have the identity of the attacker and know a lot more about his motivation.

BOLDUAN: We certainly hope so. Let's get back to Melissa Bell in London following these breaking developments. What else are you picking up now, Melissa?

BELL: Still just scenes of chaos. And we're getting this image, of course, Kate, which is remarkable, this quickly after the attack of what appears to be the security forces having surrounded the man that they shot but did not kill, which, of course, is crucial.

And as Mike was just saying, will be crucial in the investigation going forward, trying to understand whether he was acting alone, whether he had been inspired by some of the statements that you alluded to a moment ago.

Where people have been urged to go out with whatever they can grab, whether it's just a truck or a hammer in this case, and take on security forces, or whether this is an individual working in closer coordination with others.

Sadly, these are, as Mike was just saying, the same questions that we keep asking. And we've seen, as we were saying earlier, Kate, this sort of, this new kind of attack.

Since last July when we saw the dreadful attacks in Nice where a lone man had gotten into a truck and plowed into a crowd of people watching the 14th of July attack, sort of garnered the more coordinated, larger-scale attacks we saw in France on November 15th, for instance, when 130 people were killed in different locations in Paris, highly organized attacks that have been coordinated from Syria.

We really haven't seen any of those in a while. What we have seen are a much smaller scale over the course of the last few months attacks, but one a month, and specifically attacking security forces and often with the crudest of means, and that appears to be what we're seeing today, those images from outside Notre Dame.

Of course, heavily policed. The streets of France really are heavily policed these days. There are so many extra policemen, extra military personnel on the streets. We're still in a state of emergency and we're going to remain in a state of emergency in France until July.

That's what's planned for the time being. But we get to that problem that we've been facing in London as well. Talking about London over the course of the last few days, where it is very difficult for security services to track all of the people, even the ones that come across their radars, you know, for any length of time.

It takes resources that France or the U.K. simply don't have. And so, we're seeing with alarming regularity, really, and this has been the case in France over the course of the last few weeks, these smaller- scale attacks specifically targeting military or policemen and women.

And in this case, just armed with a hammer. I mean, these are suicidal missions but that allow these individuals to cause the kind of chaos that you're seeing there on the streets outside Notre Dame, and in a sense, keep the public in a state of anxiety.

This sense that we remain under siege and we continue to face this threat, which appears, perhaps, in the course of the last few days, as Ramadan has opened, again to be picking up in intensity.

BOLDUAN: And the reminder that they are remaining in a state of emergency until July. That's absolutely right, Melissa. Thank you for reminding me of that.

With these live pictures -- Mike, you've been watching these first live pictures that we're getting in outside Notre Dame. I mean, you tell me what you see. I don't see a sense of urgency, a sense of alarm amongst the security forces here, but tell me what you see. What does this tell us?

BAKER: Well, they're very professional so they know what they're doing. They've locked the area down. These folks are providing perimeter security and sort of crowd control.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

BAKER: So, yes, there's a sense of calmness there amongst the professionals that know what they're doing. And obviously, the fact that they've got the attacker under control so quickly, that helps obviously calm things down as well.

But I think it's worth noting, these small-scale attacks, if that's what you want to call them -- they're still horrific -- but they're capturing the headlines right now. Within the intel and law enforcement communities, the concern is what's happening elsewhere, what's happened behind the scenes.

Because we don't want to get lost in the idea that this is the new model and this is what they're going to do. There are still efforts to create larger, more sophisticated, more coordinated attacks on a grander scale, not necessarily a 9/11 scale, but something of a larger note.

And so, the concern within the community, within law enforcement and intel is what's still going on in that regard. And so, there's a tremendous amount of work that goes on off the radar screen to try to figure that out and to try to, again, minimize, disrupt, prevent.

[11:15:08]But while our attention right now is focused on these lone wolf or these small-scale attacks, believe me, ISIS, al Qaeda elements and others --

BOLDUAN: They have not given up on their goal.

BAKER: -- their goal is a larger, more coordinated attack somewhere.

BOLDUAN: And Art, as we've been discussing, and hopefully you're still with us --

RODERICK: Yes.

BOLDUAN: This is what it appears to be, one man, at the moment, one man with a hammer attacking police outside Notre Dame. But the fact that it was, if I put it this way, just a hammer, does it make it any less concerning in the realm of security officials in what they need to be looking out for, protecting from, and the constant threat of terror?

RODERICK: Well, I mean, the motivation is going to be the key here and Mike is right. When you look at these type of attacks, the individual's attacking security forces or law enforcement with crude weapons, is not the type of attack that's going to inflict major injuries to the public.

This is simply an attack to keep the public aware that they're out there, that they're going to continue to do this, and as Mike mentioned, they're planning bigger operations all the time.

So, this attack is just to keep law enforcement on high level of alert, also to keep the public stressed out that, hey, this could happen anywhere, anytime and anyplace, and that's exactly the method behind this particular attack, is that listen, this individual with a hammer was not going to do a lot of damage, and of course, attacked law enforcement, who immediately took him down.

But it's going to be very interesting to find out what type of information this particular individual comes across in his interrogations.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Mike, you can see with me the image on the left hand of your screen, one of the first images that we're getting from inside the cathedral and what we're seeing. I mean, it seems clear, they've put inside and outside on lockdown is what that looks like.

BAKER: Absolutely. Well, you have to control the crowds. You have to know who's friend, who's foe, and so again, it's the reality of the world we live in. People understand now, if you're caught up in an incident like this what do you do? Hands up, put your hands on your head. It's amazing that --

BOLDUAN: Yes, the person who sent in the photo said that police asked everyone to put their hands in the air.

BAKER: Right, but the public is aware of that almost now intuitively, they understand if they're caught in a situation like this. But you asked an important question about the fact that it's a hammer in an incident like this.

In reality, it doesn't matter. As unsophisticated as it is, or, in fact, the Times Square bombs didn't go off, or sort of the unsophisticated Dublin Airport attack, whatever it may be, even if it doesn't work, it still advances the ball from the extremists' point of view. And again, we're admitting, we're at the beginning of this investigation --

BOLDUAN: Right, we are early on and we are waiting to hear --

BAKER: -- got to get the motivation.

BOLDUAN: Exactly, exactly. We are early on. And just to make sure we're hitting on all the information we have, which admittedly at this point is little. We have from police telling CNN that a man tried to attack police near Notre Dame, outside of Notre Dame in Paris. Police then shot the man, wounding him.

Unclear the severity of his injuries. That is the very latest that we have at this moment. Police clearly still locking down the scene and working through this as we are getting just our very first images coming out from what clearly was a chaotic scene in one of the most popular tourist attractions, most popular spots and landmarks, historic landmarks in the beautiful city of Paris.

Brian Stelter, host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES" is here, joining us right now. Brian, you've been keeping your eye and ear to the ground and what you've been picking up as well.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: And the social media reaction describing this image from inside the cathedral, remarkable that we're seeing what's inside the cathedral. However, we're not seeing reports of other injuries, of any fatalities.

It does not appear, so far, that there were other injuries to any civilians on the scene. This one police officer who was apparently injured by this hammer attack.

I think it's very notable from a quote President Trump, who recently described terrorists as losers, that there may have only been a single injury in this incident.

It's worthwhile to point out, on social media, we're not seeing pictures of chaos anymore. It does seem to be a calm scene in Paris.

BAKER: But they accomplished the task, because again, look at what we're doing, look at the coverage, look what we're talking about.

BOLDUAN: They've locked down a major landmark.

BAKER: They've locked down a major landmark.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

STELTER: And terror obviously causes harm. Panic also can cause harm. We saw the other day in Italy, hundreds of people injured in a near stampede when there was concern about a bomb scare.

BOLDUAN: That's right.

STELTER: Hopefully, no injuries here inside or outside the cathedral as a result of the chaos there.

BOLDUAN: And if we do -- do we still have Melissa Bell on with us? No. So, Melissa Bell is not there? I'm just getting this in. This is from CNN's Jim Bittermann in Paris, that the Paris prosecutor's office has said they have opened an anti-terror probe into the incident at Notre Dame.

[11:20:08]I don't know if that -- should that tell us anything, do you think, Michael, or at this point, they're saying they're going open it just because of -- unfortunately, the state of reality we live in at this moment. BAKER: Right. It would be speculation on my part. I would suspect, though, they have I.d.'d the attacker, and that's caused him to open up this terror investigation. But I don't think it's not -- it's not standard protocol to just go that direction in the event of any attack.

BOLDUAN: Great point. Art Roderick, you're still with us. Art, are you near a TV? Can you see the images we're looking at?

RODERICK: Yes. I do see the images, and I think Brian's comment regarding no other reports of attacks is the key part here. You see law enforcement in a very non-stressed posture. They're talking to people. They're talking to one another. Nobody's rushing around. There's no weapons held at the ready.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

RODERICK: So, it appears to me that they're fairly sure that this was a one individual, a lone wolf type attack, and they've taken out the individual. I haven't heard of any other reports of any other injuries or any other attacks in the city itself right now at this point.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And let us hope and pray that it stays that way at this moment.

RODERICK: Right. Exactly.

BOLDUAN: We're continuing to get new details in. Everyone stick with me. Let's add Bob Baer, CNN terror analyst, also to the conversation, former CIA operative. He's joining me now.

Bob, one thing we've just picked up from the Paris prosecutors office is that they have opened an anti-terror probe into the incident in Notre Dame. Talk to me what that could mean.

ROBERT BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST (via telephone): Well, they have to look at it as terrorism right now early on, simply because of the three recent attacks in Britain. And there seems to be a wave of jihadi attacks in Europe, especially as Raqqah is on the verge of falling, I think we're going to see a lot more spontaneous attacks like this.

And it doesn't really bother me that the French don't, you know, don't have tanks in the street and their weapons at the ready. There's nothing you can do about these attacks when they're low-tech like this, cars and the rest of it.

The best they can do is once they identify this person is see if there's a larger network, but he may have acted on his own. We simply don't know at this point. As I've always said, the French are very good. They're on top of this. They can arrest people.

But when you have a community like this, so isolated from French society, it's very difficult to predict who's going to pull the trigger, or pull a knife out. BOLDUAN: Let me read you one thing that I'm just being handed. The general secretary of the police union telling BFM, Bob, this is the account that he was told -- a man with a backpack walked towards two policemen and pulled a hammer out of the bag and attacked one of the policemen.

That policeman was hurt. The second policeman then pulled his gun and shot the attacker in the chest. This sounds a lot -- this obviously kind of corroborates with some of the detail, giving maybe more detail on how this could have played out.

BAER: The backpack, you know, now you can pick this stuff up in chat rooms. Carry a backpack, put a vest on, make the police, you know, fear that it's a suicide bomber. You start seeing patterns in all these attacks as it becomes more difficult to get explosives, then they move to hammers and knives.

We're going to have to wait and see. It may have been just your garden-variety psychopath with attacks in Europe and the fact that Europe is on such high alert for these people and is facing a true problem. And you know, until advised otherwise, it looks like terrorism to me.

BOLDUAN: Yes, your garden-variety psychopath not the most comforting words on a day like today or any day, for sure. Let me go right now -- Bob, stick with me -- go to Jim Bittermann, international correspondent out of Paris for us.

Jim's been getting a lot of new information in. Jim, what are you picking up? I was just reading your reporting on air of your news coming from the prosecutor's office. What are you hearing?

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, that's exactly it, but in fact, the prosecutor has opened a terrorism investigation which indicates that there is at least suspicion that this is some kind of a terrorist act. Now, whether it's a garden-variety psychopath, who wanted to join in with the kind of terrorist attacks we've seen around Europe or whether this is someone really intent.

Judging from the weapon, I would say it sounds like someone who was kind of motivated by a sense of hanging on to the kind of things that have already happened in both London and Paris and Manchester and elsewhere, in the fact that this is such a low-tech attack.

The man was almost certain to be killed, or at least shot at, because the police now are on very high alert. There's been a number of attacks here against police officers, including one fatal one, but there's also been some knife attacks on police officers, one over at the Louvre, for example, and now this one at Notre Dame, which wasn't a knife, but it was a hammer.

[11:25:08]Still, it's the kind of thing that the police are going to respond and it's becoming clear that if you go at the police with any kind of a weapon, be it a hammer or a knife or whatever, you're probably going to end up like this attacker has, and that is flat on the ground and wounded, if not dead.

We're not sure what kind of condition he's in. He was shot, according to eyewitnesses, there were two shots fired, and apparently was shot, according to reports, in the thorax, sort of the upper throat or chest area.

So, that would leave him in fairly bad shape. They're treating him at the scene now. This all took place about an hour ago, and the attacker is still at the scene in the plaza area in --

BOLDUAN: He's still at the scene, you're hearing? He's still at the scene, you're hearing, Jim?

BITTERMANN: Yes. Yes, yes. He's being treated by medics who are there in front of Notre Dame.

BOLDUAN: And we can probably find -- there has been a picture that we had of security forces, which we believe was around the attacker at one point. We'll probably try to pull that up to show folks once again. I am getting an important update. I want to read it for everyone who's watching.

This from Paris police, now say the situation at Notre Dame is under control. One police officer wounded. The attacker -- this now according to police -- the attacker in a hospital. This is just handed to me just offset, very fluid. It is amazing. Brian --

STELTER: Imagine the frightening scene inside that cathedral.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

STELTER: We're seeing this picture from Matthew. He's an American who lives in Los Angeles. He shared this on Twitter about an hour ago, this image of people holding their hands up.

BOLDUAN: And there's the image on the left side of your screen that we shared. Everyone was kind of believing is obviously the suspect on the ground surrounded by security forces.

BAKER: Yes, I think he was shot twice, a center mass shot. He took a chest shot and typically, those don't often end well, so, hopefully he survives. And I don't say that out of the goodness of my heart, but out of an operational perspective that we're able to gather some information in terms of the investigation and get a quicker result in terms of his motivations.

BOLDUAN: Mike, from the intel perspective, as Bob was saying and we kind of continue to say it, the difference between -- if this is the difference between a garden-variety psychopath and someone that has motivations otherwise, motivated by ISIS, inspired by ISIS. We could walk down many paths. Of course, too early to say. They still are getting all of this under control. What is the difference? What does it matter to folks like you?

BAKER: Well, in a sense, it's important because you're talking about operational leads, about avenues of investigation and ways you can gather intel. So, if it's a lone individual who was inspired to do what essentially ISIS or the jihadists have been asking people to do, which is get whatever is at your disposal and carry out an attack, then, you know, frankly, it doesn't matter.

And calling him a garden-variety psychopath, again, from the ISIS point of view, they're perfectly happy to have that individual come to them. But from our perspective on the other side --

BOLDUAN: Michael, hold on just a second. We have an eyewitness on the phone, Kyle Riches. Kyle, are you with me?

KYLE RICHES, EYEWITNESS IN PARIS (via telephone): Yes, I am.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much for jumping on the phone. Can you tell me where you were and what you saw outside the Notre Dame this morning?

RICHES: Yes, so, we were walking in the Notre-Dame Plaza. My wife and I were trying to get back on our tour bus, then we just heard two gunshots, so we grabbed each other and ran. Then I shot a video from about 30 feet from where I actually was, where we just saw probably five French police officers surrounding a guy on the ground.

All we saw was blood on his legs. Somebody shot him. I don't know exactly. We didn't see anything from before that. All we've read now is I guess he was attacking someone with a hammer and they shot him. And so, I shot the video and then we started walking.

And then the police officers decided to clear the whole entire plaza, and it sounded pretty urgent from the French that we could hear. So they cleared out everybody from the plaza when we saw probably five more police officers come in and they went around a bush that was by a tree and they saw a guy in there.

Because they all started pointing their guns at someone or something, so my wife and I crossed the street and got kind of another view where they were still pointing their guns at somebody at that point, so we got on our bus quickly because we saw all these police officers come in.

And so, that's where I shot the other video of just all the cop cars coming in and the SWAT team getting their gear on to go into the plaza. And that's when they started yelling at us to get off the bus, to go up the street kind of away from Notre-Dame and just clear out the entire area.

BOLDUAN: What was that like for you? You hear these gunshots, the urgency of the police. Can you just describe what it like when you guys are running away? You had no idea what was going on?

RICHES: Yes, we have no idea what was going on.