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Paris Airport Evacuated After Man Shot Dead By Security After Seizing Weapon

Travelers wait outside the Orly airport, south of Paris, Saturday, March, 18, 2017.
Thibault Camus AP
Travelers wait outside the Orly airport, south of Paris, Saturday, March, 18, 2017.

Paris' Orly airport has been evacuated after security forces shot and killed a man who seized the weapon of a soldier on guard.

All flights are being redirected from the airport, and reporter Jake Cigainero in Paris tells NPR's Newscast that police "have completely evacuated the airport and suspended all traffic."

No one else was injured, according to the French interior ministry.

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The BBC's Hugh Scofield says the incident happened around 8:30 a.m. local time. He continues:

"The man grabbed a gun from a soldier on patrol in the south terminal at Orly. He ran into one of the airport shops, and was shot dead there by the security forces."

Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux told reporters the man was known to French intelligence.

The minister also said the man was linked with a carjacking earlier that morning in a suburb north of Paris.

The Associated Press reports:

"In that incident, the Paris police office said, a man fired birdshot at officers who stopped him during a traffic stop, wounding one in the face. He then fled and stole a woman's car after threatening her with a weapon. That car was found near Orly."

French authorities did not find any explosives on the man's body or elsewhere in the airport after "bomb experts and police dogs made a thorough sweep," Cigainero reports.

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French prosecutors said an anti-terrorism unit was taking over their investigation.

This is a developing story.

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