Alongside ‘Je Suis Charlie,’ Slain Officer Inspires His Own Social Media Refrain - NYTimes.comAlongside ‘Je Suis Charlie,’ Slain Officer Inspires His Own Social Media Refrain - NYTimes.com






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Europe |​​NYT Now

Alongside ‘Je Suis Charlie,’ Slain Officer Inspires His Own Social Media Refrain

By AURELIEN BREEDENJAN. 8, 2015
 
Inside








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Video





Play Video|1:05
Witness Videos of Paris Terror Attack




Witness Videos of Paris Terror Attack

Several videos showing the gunmen outside the office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper, have surfaced online. The footage includes scenes of graphic violence.

                                    Video by Natalia V. Osipova                     on
                                                                        Publish Date January 7, 2015.
                            

                                    Photo by Jordi Mir, via Reuters.
                            




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PARIS —  In an amateur video that was widely circulated online after the shooting Wednesday at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices in Paris, two gunmen could be seen killing a police officer as he lay wounded on the ground.“We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad!” they shouted as they walked back to their getaway car parked nearby. “We have killed Charlie Hebdo!”The officer, Ahmed Merabet, was the second police officer to be killed that day; another officer assigned to protect Charlie Hebdo’s editorial director was also killed. On Thursday, a third police officer was killed in a seemingly unrelated shooting south of Paris in another blow to the police forces here.But the killing of Officer Merabet stood out: The #JeSuisAhmed hashtag — “I am Ahmed” in French — sprang up on social media alongside #JeSuisCharlie, as users of social media stood up for the slain officer. 

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                            Related Coverage
                    










Al Qaeda Trained Suspect in Paris Terror Attack, Official SaysJAN. 8, 2015












Recounting a Bustling Office at Charlie Hebdo, Then a ‘Vision of Horror’JAN. 8, 2015












Raising Questions Within Islam After France ShootingJAN. 8, 2015







Speculation that Officer Merabet was Muslim spread quickly on social media, where users praised him as a hero and, in some cases, a potent symbol in the debate about free speech and religious tolerance.
Photo






Ahmed Merabet


Some Twitter users wrote that Officer Merabet had died defending a newspaper that was accused of insulting his faith, and one user posted a quotation attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” Other commenters online echoed the #notinmyname social media campaign against the Islamic State. “One mustn’t forget that Muslims are the first victims of terrorism,” said one Twitter post in French.“He was killed in a cowardly way by people who had misinterpreted their sacred text,” said Christophe Crépin, a spokesman for one of France’s police unions. “Yet he himself was from an immigrant background.”Officer Merabet, 40, was assigned to the police precinct in Paris’s 11th Arrondissement, according to Rocco Contento, an official with another police union, who knew Officer Merabet.
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            More on the Paris Shootings        








 



“He was a nice person, very likable, always with a smile and very professional,” Mr. Contento said. “His colleagues are all very shocked by what happened.”Mr. Contento said Officer Merabet, whose parents were from North Africa, lived in a suburb north of Paris with a large immigrant community, was unmarried and had no children, but could not confirm whether he was a practicing Muslim.“The family wishes to keep as much discretion as possible,” said Loïc Lecouplier, an official with another police union. Police officials at the Paris prefecture and the Interior Ministry declined to comment on the officers who were killed.

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Video





Play Video|1:05
Parisians Join in Moment of Silence




Parisians Join in Moment of Silence

People stood in the rain to join in a minute of silence honoring the victims of the shooting attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

                                    Video by Associated Press                     on
                                                                        Publish Date January 8, 2015.
                            

                                    Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images.
                            



Most of the 12 people killed in the attack on Wednesday worked at Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly that lampooned everything and everyone, including Islam. Among the dead were four cartoonists: Georges Wolinski, Jean Cabut, Bernard Verlhac and Stéphane Charbonnier, who was also the newspaper’s editorial director.Franck Brinsolaro was the police officer in charge of guarding Mr. Charbonnier, who had received protection since 2011, when the weekly was attacked for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Mr. Crépin said Officer Brinsolaro fired two shots before the attackers gunned him down.Continue reading the main story
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Officer Brinsolaro had two children, according to the regional newspaper L’Éveil Normand, which said on its website that its editor in chief, Ingrid Brinsolaro, was his wife.
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Photographs





Photographs|15 Photos
Mourning in Paris, and a Manhunt for Suspects




Mourning in Paris, and a Manhunt for Suspects

CreditDominique Faget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images        





On Thursday morning, a female officer was shot and killed in what appeared to be an unrelated attack in Montrouge, a southern suburb of Paris, according to the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, who spoke to reporters at the scene after rushing out of a cabinet meeting. The killer was still at large, Mr. Cazeneuve said. The authorities have opened another terrorism investigation into the shooting.Prime Minister Manuel Valls praised the officer in a Twitter post sent out Thursday evening. “The municipal policewoman who was killed this morning honors the nation,” he wrote.The owner of a brasserie near Officer Merabet’s precinct in Paris told the French weekly Paris Match on Thursday that he was a jovial person, but sometimes felt demoralized by the way policemen are treated in France.“We don’t pay tribute to police officers enough,” she said. “We don’t hear anything about him, and yet the thugs, they are in all the newspapers.”


A version of this article appears in print on January 9, 2015, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Slain French Police Officer Inspires New Protest Refrain: ‘I Am Ahmed’.  Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe









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