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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Harriet Brewis

Noisy-le-Grand shooting: Police hunt man who gunned down waiter ‘for not preparing sandwich quickly enough’

The waiter was shot dead at the restaurant in a suburb just outside Paris (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)

French police are searching for a man who shot a waiter dead, apparently because he was not preparing his sandwich quickly enough.

Detectives have launched a murder investigation following the fatal gun attack, which took place at around 9pm on Friday in the suburb of Noisy-le-Grand, east of Paris.

Ambulance crews rushed to save the 28-year-old waiter, who had been shot in the shoulder, but he died at the scene.

The suspect fled the Le Mistral restaurant and remains on the run, Bobigny detectives confirmed.

Customers identified him as a 34-year-old man who is already known by police and who officers have described as “strikingly determined in everything he does,” according to local media.

Witnesses told police the suspect had lost his temper at the pizza and kebab shop after waiting several minutes for his meal.

He insulted the waiter before producing a 9-millimetre handgun, shooting and seriously wounding him in the shoulder, local news network BFMTV reported.

The crime, which unfolded on a busy Friday night in front of numerous witnesses, stunned local residents and shopkeepers.

One woman told French media she felt deeply saddened by the tragedy, saying: "It's a quiet restaurant, without any problems. It just opened a few months ago."

But some residents said there had been an upsurge of crime in the area, with an increase of drug-dealing and drunkenness on the streets.

Paris Police Prefecture spokesman Raphaël Biron confirmed the events but declined to provide further details because the investigation was ongoing.

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