Witness sees military bearing in gunman's movements
In the confusion of the terrorist attacks in Paris, Danish tourist Mark Colclough witnessed one of the gunmen shooting people in front of a cafe and mistook him for a police officer. "He was so military in his presence, in his movement, I wondered if we had stumbled on a police sting," Colclough told Scott Pelley for a report on 60 Minutes. Watch that unaired excerpt in the video player above or read the transcript below.
The day after the November 13th attack, Pelley interviewed a number of witnesses and survivors in Paris. His full report on 60 Minutes can be viewed here.
Mark Colclough: I think what raced through my mind was one of two things. I thought, "This is execution style. These three persons have been-- just been executed." So, I thought that this was maybe something gangland. Or we had just stumbled into and my second thought was, "Maybe--" 'cause he was so military in his presence, in his movement, I wondered if we had stumbled into a police sting. If this was something that was happening through a legal body.
Scott Pelley: He had such a military bearing you thought that this might have been a police operation of some kind?
Mark Colclough: I remember, as I'm sitting here with you now, Scott, I remember I-- my eyes flicked right. I was looking for the other members of his team. I didn't see anybody. And I thought, "That's weird." Then he gyrated back, and he shot straight ahead into a car that was parked, that was at the crossroads next to the cafe. We could see the windshield. So, I could see the bullets. He shot twice into the car. And I could see the bullets go through the side window of the driver's side. So, I thought, "Is that-- is that a driver?" You know, does that guy in the car belong to those three guys on the ground now? So, I was still thinking, "Is this an execution? Is this criminal? Is this police?" I still didn't quite know. I was frozen, just watching and thinking.