13 novembre 2015 - Attaques Paris [Part 1]

Paris is attacked. Friday, 13 November 2015. Scores of innocent people are either injured or killed. Why? It’s the age old reason of almost every war fought on earth – religion.

Today, the 10^th day after the attack and while I’m on my second, fairly large, glass of wine, I’m finally ready to write about my experience. I doubt this blog post will have my wry sense of humor (well, at least I think it’s humor) interspersed because there was nothing even remotely humorous about that night.

But to talk about it, I have to digress to set the stage as to the reason for my feelings and observations. Certainly I was heavily influenced due to my choice of career – one can’t be in law enforcement with her feet on the ground, without the everyday life of being a cop affecting my overall look on things, particularly life.

And then, on top of that, I spent over 20 years teaching “Community Policing and Problem Solving” at the Police Academy speaking directly about the way certain milestones in our country changed the direction of the nation as a whole. This, too, as you will see, added to my perspective of the Paris attacks on 13 November 2015.

Paradigms and paradigm shifts that affect an entire country don’t often occur. Most people won’t experience one in their life, a number of people will experience only one, and few people will experience more. Paradigms were part of the lessons I taught at the Police Academy. There, usually sat young adults – kids – who had little idea what their chosen career actually was, as the examples set by movies and television are about as far from the truth as one can get.

When I first started teaching in the academy the students were close to my age but after 20 years, well many of them could be my grandchildren and had only heard about the significant paradigm shifts our country went through in the 20^th and 21^st centuries: the stock market crash in 1929, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and 9-11. Each of these incidents changed the way the United States behaved, an example is that before 9-11 the word “terrorist” was not in our law enforcement vernacular – now it’s past its “buzz word” stage and has become ingrained in how law enforcement does business.

I have lived through two of these paradigm shifts – JKF and 9-11. And I feel as though I’ve now lived through a third one – the attacks on Paris, just in a different country.

When 9-11 occurred, I was at a law enforcement conference in Long Beach and watched it unfold while in the hotel gym before that day’s conference began (which it never happened – it basically shut down).  I was 3,000 miles away but felt acutely connected to what was happening, mostly because I felt absolutely inept. Here I was trained, and had the personality, to go towards high risk incidents yet I was unable to help in New York. I felt as though I was failing in my duties. (At the time I was working with the FBI at the Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory and we did send a few people out to New York but I wasn’t one those who got to respond).

Then, 10 days ago Paris was attacked. Once again I felt an overwhelming need – yes need – to help but there was absolutely nothing I could do. Again, I felt inept. I don’t really know how to express how hard it is to have spent my career helping people (whether they wanted it or not) and then being in a position of not being able to help when everything is literally “going to hell.”

Friday the 13^th – since I’m still fairly new to the customs here, when the day started I wasn’t sure if that date had any creepy significance in France or not. The day started pretty normal and I was blessed to have an out-of-town friend staying with me.

We met British relatives of hers for lunch. It was a first meeting for most of our group. We ate at Chez Rene in the 5^th arrondissement, which is on the left bank. After lunch we walked across the Seine and across the Ile-Saint-Louis to the right bank. We meandered around just enjoying the afternoon until we decided that the rue de Rivoli was far too crowded and took a side street – rue de Halles, where we found a café, not too far from the Châtelet metro station, to drink some wine. This is in the 1^st arrondissement.

We left about 7:00pm because it had started to rain a bit and we had a baby with us. We all decided to take the Châtelet metro to our homes (opposite sides of Paris) and I’m thankful that God was watching over us because my visitor and I would have normally just gone on a walk-about to find what we could see in this wonderful City. Had we done so, there is a good possibility that we would have been in, near or close to “ground zero” when the attacks occurred.

The attacks occurred in the 10^th and 11^th arrondissement. I won’t explain the purpose of arrondissements this time but the City of Paris is broken into 20 arrondissements (think neighborhoods). They do not run linear but instead spiral like that of a snail (escargot) shell. The 10^th and 11^th arrondissements are next to each other and the 1^st arrondissement is very close. Everything is really in walking distance in Paris. All are on the right bank – meaning north of the Seine (see map below).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So my houseguest and I started back to the 15^th arrondissement (left bank) but didn’t go directly home, instead we stopped at a café for a small dinner and probably made it home around 9:00pm. It wasn’t long after that we were both in bed.
 

At about 10:30pm (Paris time) my houseguest got a text from the United States asking about the bombings. That was the first we knew the city was under attack. I turned on the TV to the two English channels (BBC World News and SkyNews) and brought up on my computer an English French newspaper (The Local) to follow the story.
 

What was most interesting about this is that my houseguest was texting with her husband who was watching in the United States and he was getting information before we were seeing it in France. I remember distinctly he telling us that there was a firefight going on between the terrorists and police from the roof of the Bataclan music venue. He had this information maybe 2 or 3 minutes before we saw it on the TV in France.
 

Now, I don’t know if it’s because I am limited to English speaking news channels and if I understood the French language better and followed on a French language news station if the information would have been more up-to-date or not. We stayed glued to the television until 4:00am on Saturday morning when exhaustion, and the lessening of text and email messages to us from everyone in the United States (which I thank you so very much for your concern – I tried to keep everyone apprised of the situation via Facebook updates throughout the night) finally drove us to get some sleep.
 

It was almost surreal during the hours watching the newscasts. First off, the wail of sirens never stopped – all night/morning long I could hear them out my window. Not the ones in the 10^th and 11^th arrondissements where the attacks occurred but within my arrondissement – my guess was they were going to the attack area for support. Seeing, on the television as the crime scene expanded – over and over again, the number of people killed increasing hour by hour, the scores of people injured and then, of course, the hostages at the Bataclan. Recognizing the coordination of the attacks whether via suicide bomber or gun fire.
 

(Part 2 to be posted in a couple of days)