12-Year-Old Girl Shot 8 Times in Drive-By ‘Racist Terror Attack’ That Left 1 Man Dead and at Least 4 Others Injured

Investigators at a gas station targeted in the shooting in the Paris suburbs on Oct. 23, 2026Credit: Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP via Getty

One man was killed and at least five people were injured during a drive-by shooting in the Paris suburbs on Oct. 23

A 12-year-old girl was shot eight times in the shooting, which French President Emmanuel Macron called a “racist terror attack”

A suspect believed to be the gunman was arrested shortly after the shooting, which is being investigated as a terrorist attack

One person was killed and several others, including a young girl who was shot eight times, were injured in France in what officials are describing as a racially motivated shooting and are investigating as a terrorist attack.

A man opened fire from his car in the suburbs of Paris, killing one and injuring at least five others — including a 12-year-old girl — on Friday, Oct. 23 in what French President Emmanuel Macron has described as a “racist terror attack,” according to BBC News, CBS News and French press agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The gunman carried out the attack for about 15 minutes, opening fire in Trappes and La Verrière in France on Friday, according to the outlets. He fired in bursts from the vehicle beginning around 10:30 a.m., AFP reported, citing a police source.

The attacker targeted people at a gas station, medical center and a playground in Trappes before heading to La Verrière, BBC News reported, citing the mayor of Trappes, Ali Rabeh.

Rabeh said the attacker was “firing at random, wanting to cause a bloodbath,” per the AFP. The mayor also said the shooting was “objectively a racist [and] probably Islamophobic attack.”

Police officers on a site of a petrol station where a man opened fire from his car in Trappes, France, on Oct. 23, 2026Credit: Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP via Getty

Authorities have not yet identified the deceased victim of the attack, but the has identified the victim as 26-year-old Pengo Bossio Wangi, an amateur mixed martial arts fighter.

Rabeh said the man was “of north African origin,” according to AFP. La Verriere Mayor Nicolas Dainville said two of the injured individuals were also of African origin.

The 12-year-old girl injured in the attack was shot eight times and was “seriously wounded,” Dainville told AFP. She will require surgery, her mother told French media.

“How could anyone do this to a child?” the girl’s mother said, according to BBC News. “She’s a child who was born in France, in Trappes. She has the right to live in France, to make her life in France.”

French President Emmanuel Macron meeting with authorities in Trappes after the shooting on Oct. 23, 2026Credit: HANNAH MCKAY/POOL/EPA/Shutterstock

While visiting Trappes in the wake of the attack, Macron said, “What happened here today was a racist terrorist attack,” per AFP.

“These people were targeted because of their skin color or perceived religion, and for no other reason,” the French president said of the attack, according to CBS News. He also said that “there is no place for this” in the country.

“This is a turning point because it is the first time there has been a terrorist act aimed at killing our compatriots and our children for the color of their skin or what their religion is thought to be,” Macron said of the attack, per AFP. “We must not yield anything to the ideas that are taking root in the Republic that could justify such behavior.”

France’s interior minister Laurent Nuñez said the drive-by attack was “clearly a terrorist crime,” according to AFP.

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Police arrested the alleged attacker shortly after the shooting in the nearby commune of Coignières, per AFP. The suspect has not yet been identified by authorities, but AFP and other local outlets reported him to be a 39-year-old man.

The suspect was found in possession of a submachine gun and gas grenades in his vehicle, AFP and CBS News reported. He had also booby-trapped his flat with three gas canisters and electric wires on a timer, according to the outlets.

Three other people from the suspect’s “family and circle of friends” were taken into police custody following the incident, CBS News reported, citing France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office, which has taken control of the case, the AP reported.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation for “murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise,” according to AFP.

According to the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office, the suspected gunman was not on a list of individuals believed to be a serious threat to French security prior to Friday’s incident, BBC News reported.

Source: Crime