A waitress in the French city of Montpellier was able to disarm a 43-year-old Moroccan migrant armed with a pistol after he threatened patrons of the restaurant in which she worked.
The 43-year-old entered the restaurant L’Escale on Saturday evening at around 6:45 p.m. to make an order and while waiting for his food began to pray to himself telling the waitress “it’s haram” and forcing her to sit down with him. He then proceeded to tell the waitress he had a pistol in his pocket and was planning on killing one of the customers eating at the restaurant, E-Metropolitain reports.
The waitress attempted to calm the man down and when he lowered his head in prayer she, along with other customers, managed to grab the pistol from his possession and restrain him until police were able to arrive.
When police arrived at around 7:15 p.m. the man is said to have shouted “Allahu Ackbar!” and recited the Shahada, the Islamic creed and profession of faith.
While the pistol was revealed to only shoot blanks, it was said to have been a near perfect replica of a real firearm in its construction.
Following his arrest, police have kept the 43-year-old in custody pending a psychiatric evaluation, saying that he exhibited symptoms of mental illness.
The incident comes only weeks after a gunman opened fire at a restaurant in Brussels on Christmas Eve with what witnesses described as a “Kalashnikov-style” weapon, and less than a year after a brutal attack in a Paris restaurant involving Sri Lankan migrants armed with machetes who scalped and cut part of a man’s arm off in what was described as a revenge attack.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com
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