CNN –
Three people were killed and four others wounded after a gunman opened fire on a Kurdish community center and a restaurant and barber shop near Paris on Friday, local mayor Alexandra Cordebard said.
“After the dramatic shooting that took place this morning, I have returned to Paris and will go to the scene. All my thoughts go out to the families of the victims. The perpetrator was arrested,” French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin tweeted.
The shooting in the 10th District has not been ruled a terrorist incident, although all avenues are being investigated.
The alleged assailant has been arrested. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the gunman’s motive was unclear and an investigation had been opened.
Beccuau told reporters at the scene that police had previously known the alleged attacker had been involved in two incidents: one in the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis and the other at a migrant tent camp in Bercy , near the French Ministry of Finance, in the 12th arrondissement of Paris.
Anti-terror prosecutors in Paris are “evaluating” the events surrounding Friday’s shooting, but the investigation is still being led by the city’s judicial authorities, the anti-terror prosecutor told CNN on Friday.
“We are evaluating the facts to know whether the event should be classified as an act of terrorism,” the prosecutor’s office said.
The three people killed during the shooting in and near a Kurdish community center on Friday are Kurds, the center’s lawyer confirmed to CNN.
The attorney declined to provide further information as the investigation is still ongoing.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said Friday that investigators are not ruling out possible “racist motivations” behind the shooting, which took place at the Kurdish Ahmet-Kaya Cultural Center on rue d’Enghien.
“When it comes to racist motivations, of course those elements are part of the investigation that has just been launched,” Beccuau said.
After the incident, a crowd gathered near the center where people from the Kurdish diaspora were heard singing the Kurdish phrase “Şehid Namirin”, which means: Those who are lost are never truly lost, but with us, according to the CNN team on the ground.
Some people were also heard chanting “Killer Erdogan”, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strong stance against Kurdish nationalism and his policies towards Turkey-based far-left Kurdish political and militant groups and Iraq.