The initial reporting of the terrorist attack in Paris stated that as many as 46 people killed and 100 others taken hostage. And as the story progressed, it is always the hope that that number will decrease and those originally feared dead would be found alive. Hope has failed us tonight as the number of innocent people killed has ballooned upwards past 100 to as many as 120 killed.
French television and news services quoted the police as saying that around 100 people had been killed at a concert site where hostages had been held during a two-hour standoff with the police, and that perhaps dozens of others had been killed in apparently coordinated attacks outside the country’s main sports stadium and four or five other popular locations in the city. But estimates on the total number of dead varied.
Witnesses on French television said the scene at the concert hall, which can seat as many as 1,500 people, was a massacre, describing how gunmen with automatic weapons shot bursts of bullets into the crowd. Ambulances were seen racing back and forth in the area into the early hours of Saturday.
Television reports said at least five assailants had been killed: three at the concert hall as the police assaulted the building, and two near the sports stadium. It was unclear whether other attackers were still on the loose early Saturday.
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