A 31-year-old gunman suspected of holding two people hostage inside a post office in a northwestern suburb of Paris on Friday surrendered to police without violence on Friday, the press office of the French Ministry of the Interior confirmed to NBC News. Officials said the situation was not linked to terrorism.
The siege had occurred at the Aragon Post Office in Petit-Colombes, near the La Défense business district just west of Paris, NBC reported. A tactical response unit was sent to help officers at the scene, a spokesman said.
The two hostages were released and the suspect is in custody.
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Police remain on high alert across the European continent following 54 hours of terror that rocked the French capital last week. Last Wednesday, brothers Chérif and Säid Kouachi allegedly stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical newspaper, killing 12 people. The next day, a gunman killed a policewoman and wounded a street sweeper across from a Jewish school in the neighborhood of Montrouge in Paris.
Last Friday, officials killed the Kouachi brothers following a standoff at a printing shop north of the country’s capital. Simultaneously, an associate of the brothers, Amedy Coulibaly, seized a kosher supermarket in Paris, killing four hostages before police stormed the market. Coulibaly was identified as a suspect in the Thursday shooting of the policewoman.
Michele Richinick