A man was shot by police after he attacked an officer outside Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral on Tuesday, according to The Guardian. Local media are reporting the man was wielding a hammer.
The BBC says officials have told people to stay away from the area; according to The Telegraph, the main square near Paris’ tourist attraction has been evacuated. David Rahul Metreaum, a witness, told BFMTV that he saw a “man on the ground who is not moving.”
Police swarmed the area and are circling the surroundings to make sure there are no accomplices. According to The Guardian, the French prosecutors office said that the counter-terrorism office is launching an investigation.
Paris is under high security after a series of coordinated terrorist attacks occurred in November 2015. Three suicide bombers struck during a football match while gunmen carried out a mass shooting at an Eagles of Death Metal concert in the Bataclan theatre. 130 were killed, and more than 350 were injured.
France has been on high alert since the January 2015 attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices and a Jewish supermarket which killed 17.
The incident at Notre Dame comes just three days after a terror attack in London, which ISIS has since claimed responsibility for. Police in the U.K. arrested 12 suspects in response to the attack, which claimed at least seven lives and injured more than 40 others on Saturday night.
Major Terrorist Attacks in 2016 (Photos)
Terrorist attacks in Brussels, Orlando, and Nice have made the biggest headlines around the globe, but there have been more than 100 more terrorist attacks this year. These are some of the deadliest ones that have happened so far. Be advised: This gallery contains violent imagery.
January 3 -- ISIS suicide bombers attack Camp Speicher, a former U.S. base now used by the Iraqi Air Force, killing 15.
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January 7 -- A car bomb at a Libyan police camp in the town of Zilten kills 60 people and wounds 200 more.
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January 11 -- Bombs in three cities in Iraq, including Baghdad, kill over 130 people.
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January 16 -- ISIS forces attack the Syrian town of Deir ez-Zor, killing Syrian army members as well as women and children. Death toll estimates range between 130 and 300 people.
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February 1 -- A suicide bomber detonates a vest outside Afghanistan's national police headquarters in Kabul, killing 20 and injuring 29.
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February 8 -- ISIS executes approximately 300 activists, police, and military personnel in Mosul, Iraq.
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February 21 -- ISIS detonates car bombs in two Syrian towns heavily populated with Shi'ite Muslims, killing between 140 and 270 people, and wounding over 300 more.
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February 17; March 13 -- 67 people are killed in two car bombings in Ankara, Turkey that occur within a month of each other.
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March 22 -- Three suicide bombers armed with nail bombs performed coordinated attacks in Brussels, Belgium. Thirty-two people are killed, with the nail bombs wounding 340 more.
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March 27 -- Seventy-two people, including 29 children, are killed in a suicide bombing at the largest public park in Lahore, Pakistan.
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June 12 -- A gunman opens fire on a nightclub popular with the LGBT community in Orlando, killing 49 and wounding 53 before being shot down by law enforcement officials. The attack is the deadliest in the United States since 9/11.
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June 28 -- A trio of suicide bombings at an airport in Istanbul kill 45 and injure 200 more. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
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July 3 -- Several bombings in Baghdad kill over 300 and wound 225. The attacks are the deadliest in Iraq since 2007.
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July 7 -- A sniper kills five police officers who are escorting a protest against police brutality in Dallas. The shooting came in the same week that two African-American men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were killed during encounters with police officers.
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July 14: At least 77 people are killed in Nice, France, after a truck drives through a crowd on Bastille Day.
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Major attacks in 2016 have taken place in Brussels, Nice, Syria, and Orlando
Terrorist attacks in Brussels, Orlando, and Nice have made the biggest headlines around the globe, but there have been more than 100 more terrorist attacks this year. These are some of the deadliest ones that have happened so far. Be advised: This gallery contains violent imagery.