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Attack by truck in Nice, France * dozens feared dead [W:15,W:30]

Chagos

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Just saw this on the news.

Reports still confused but a truck was driven into the crowd celebrating Bastille Day on Nice's Promenade des Anglais, near Hotel Negresco.

Eye witnesses report that the truck drove/plowed for at least a 100 yards into the crowd at about 30 mph and that there then was gunfire.

Driver's cabin (windscreen) shows several hits./

Many dead, more injured.

Details over how many truck occupants and whether it was an attack of terrorist/jihadist background still to unfold.

Live':'' 'Vehicle' 'ploughs' 'into' 'crowd' 'in' 'French' 'city' 'of' 'Nice' 'in' 'possible' 'attack' '-' 'France' '24
 
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Just saw this on the news.

Reports still confused but a truck was driven into the crowd celebrating Bastille Day on Nice's Promenade des Anglais, near Hotel Negresco.

Eye witnesses report that the truck drove/plowed for at least a 100 yards into the crowd at about 30 mph and that there then was gunfire.

Driver's cabin (windscreen) shows several hits./

Many dead, more injured.

Details over how many truck occupants and whether it was an attack of terrorist/jihadist background still to unfold.

Live':'' 'Vehicle' 'ploughs' 'into' 'crowd' 'in' 'French' 'city' 'of' 'Nice' 'in' 'possible' 'attack' '-' 'France' '24

Oh my god this is so shocking. It's not like people have been predicting this kind of thing for decades or anything :doh
 
It shouldn't surprise anyone.
 
Oh my god this is so shocking. It's not like people have been predicting this kind of thing for decades or anything :doh

Where do you want him to send the apology letter for opening a thread about this horrible terror attack to?
 
Reports from several news outlets including local TV are circling around deaths figure of up to 70 now.

Nothing official yet but a terrible carnage anyway.

Trying to get hold of somebody I know who lives (near) there but can't get thru. Hoping that it's just down to cell net overload.
 
Where do you want him to send the apology letter for opening a thread about this horrible terror attack to?

He can do whatever he wants. In 2 weeks he'll be back to telling us no threat exists and Britain First is what we should all worry about.
 
#................

Trying to get hold of somebody I know who lives (near) there but can't get thru. Hoping that it's just down to cell net overload.
She's ok. Stayed home on account of the kid having some sort of stomach flu.

Death toll now 77 and expected to rise. Of the over 100 injured some 40 are in intensive.
 
Local prosecutor saying the truck drove for 2 km along the promenade before being stopped by the driver being shot. By witness accounts it zig-zagged in the attemtp to hit as many people as possible.

AFP has reported that the driver is still being identified but papers found in the cab relate to a French-Tunisian resident of Nice.

Strangely the truck has right hand drive (steering on the right). So far "information" of there having been more than one perp remains unconfirmed.
 
The driver fired on the crowd as he approached and the truck was packed with guns and explosives.

I can't understand how they have all these guns and bombs, when France has so many restrictions on that stuff. Apparently, gun laws don't work, except to victimize the innocent.
 
Oh my god this is so shocking. It's not like people have been predicting this kind of thing for decades or anything :doh

It shouldn't surprise anyone.

Ditto!



Didn't surprise me. After Charlie Hebdo, I predicted that it was just the beginning...



To the government of France.

Religion of 'Pieces' calling.

Moderator's Warning:
Notice the title of the thread? Stick to that. Wanna start some of your partisan stupidity? Start your own thread.
 
~ Details over how many truck occupants and whether it was an attack of terrorist/jihadist background still to unfold ~

My suspicion is terrorism but the German newsman who recorded the truck's journey that has been playing worldwide said the truck only started weaving after the motorbike rider who was bravely trying to stop it failed and two policemen shot into the cab, possibly injuring or killing the driver so he had less control of the vehicle. Time and investigation will tell.

Horrible, horrible incident. My thoughts go out to those killed and their families.
 
My suspicion is terrorism but the German newsman who recorded the truck's journey that has been playing worldwide said the truck only started weaving after the motorbike rider who was bravely trying to stop it failed and two policemen shot into the cab, possibly injuring or killing the driver so he had less control of the vehicle. Time and investigation will tell.

Horrible, horrible incident. My thoughts go out to those killed and their families.

There were two police officers there who opened fire on the truck driver after he shot from the truck on the crowds of celebrating civilians and before he started driving over people, you can't help but think that had they hit their target and neutralized him with those shots scores of innocent lives would have been saved.
 
Given recent events in France how does this guy manage to drive for over a mile through crowded streets on their national day. They were at a state of emergency ffs
 
Well, the concept of locking the whole of France down (not merely the Nice beachfront) with concrete barriers at both ends and on every side street is pretty utopian. Bastille day has celebrations in every town right down to the smallest imaginable village. Impossible to turn into a "green zone".

I'd assume that the "des Anglais" was closed to traffic but that would only have been some flimsy portable barriers.

It's a bloody miracle they managed to stop him as early as they did.
 
RIP to the innocents.

Sadly, I find myself posting such condolences far too frequently lately.
 
There were two police officers there who opened fire on the truck driver after he shot from the truck ~

Strange, the BBC page on this says the gun and grenade were fake but an eyewitness in the same report also says he was shooting at the crowd. This has come out since I watched the German reporter being interviewed this morning.
 
Strange, the BBC page on this says the gun and grenade were fake but an eyewitness in the same report also says he was shooting at the crowd. This has come out since I watched the German reporter being interviewed this morning.
I'll wait til "facts" have been established.

We know the worth of eye-witness accounts.

Apart from which the media have the habit of aping one another. As such the account of "drivers" (plural) was around for hours with every Tom, Dick and Harry citing everybody else's Tom, Dick and Harry and their uncles to boot.
 
Given recent events in France how does this guy manage to drive for over a mile through crowded streets on their national day. They were at a state of emergency ffs

I thought about that also but the truth is, terrorists want to lock us down and scare us to death. We can't give in to that. But, as you've said, there could have been some other measures taken for security. I thought about those metal concrete barriers that could have been put up when a crowd like this gathers on a street which was blocked off to traffic. It may come down to that for all future world events. One way or another we have to stop these monsters.
 
Given recent events in France how does this guy manage to drive for over a mile through crowded streets on their national day. They were at a state of emergency ffs
Even with the impossibility I mentioned of turning all of France into a "green zone", THAT was a massive security failure.

I hear from Parisian friends that during the EURO 2016 you couldn't drive within a mile of any stadium, not even on a bike. Now it may understandably have been more difficult to "secure" whole "quartiers" where public viewing screens were up, but in NICE you simply had to block the Promenade at both ends and a few side street entries. Not particularly difficult in logistics, as compared to areas with multiple access.

Blocked to traffic meaning BLOCKED.

I also get sick of the version still circulating that "using a truck was unprecedented and thus a total surprise".

What total rubbish.

They badly screwed up there.
 
Even with the impossibility I mentioned of turning all of France into a "green zone", THAT was a massive security failure.

I hear from Parisian friends that during the EURO 2016 you couldn't drive within a mile of any stadium, not even on a bike. Now it may understandably have been more difficult to "secure" whole "quartiers" where public viewing screens were up, but in NICE you simply had to block the Promenade at both ends and a few side street entries. Not particularly difficult in logistics, as compared to areas with multiple access.

Blocked to traffic meaning BLOCKED.

I also get sick of the version still circulating that "using a truck was unprecedented and thus a total surprise".

What total rubbish.

They badly screwed up there.

Well if they are like Montreal, they do block it, but using metal barriers that are great at stopping people and small vehicles but not a truck. If you wanted to stop this from happening they would need to erect barriers like those in Northern Ireland, giant concrete walls.
 
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