A police dog was killed today when the agency raided a suspect’s home in connection with the Paris terror attacks.
Named “Diesel,” the 7-year-old Belgian malinois, was killed sometime during the seven-hour siege at an apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint Denis, an operation that likely thwarted other potential ISIS attacks.
While humans were injured during the mission, it was the brave dog that garnered much of the public’s attention after French police tweeted: “Diesel, 7-year-old malinois, #RAID assault dog was killed by terrorists in the current operation #SaintDenis” (rough translation).
[INFO] Diesel, malinois de 7 ans, chienne d’assaut du #RAID a été tuée par les terroristes dans l’opération en cours #SaintDenis
— Police Nationale (@PNationale) November 18, 2015
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Shortly after, the agency put out another tweet shown below, which roughly says: “assault and explosives search dogs are indispensable in the missions of the operators of the raid.”
Les chiens d’assaut et de recherche d’explosifs: indispensables dans les missions des opérateurs du #RAID pic.twitter.com/vb5lGjnwjO — Police Nationale (@PNationale) November 18, 2015
Combined, these tweets have been retweeted more than 20,000 times and the hashtag #JeSuisChien, which means “I am dog,” began trending. It has been retweeted more than 55,000 times and is a take on the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag that was used after the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo was attacked by terrorists this past January.
Seven people were arrested during the raid, two suspects were killed.
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H/T USA Today