PARIS, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- The gunman who shot an assistant photographer and took a driver hostage was just released from prison and prepared for anything, the hostage told Paris police.
The gunman fired a shotgun at the offices of left-wing Liberation newspaper, injuring an assistant photographer then took a driver hostage after firing shots outside the Societe Generale bank headquarters, forcing the driver at gunpoint to take him to the Champs Elysees before releasing him.
Sources said the driver told police the still unidentified suspect told him he was just released from prison and was "ready for anything," Radio France Internationale reported Tuesday.
The man had a grenade and a pump-action shotgun that he used outside the bank and at the newspaper office, where he seriously injured a 23-year-old photographer who was on his first day of work as a freelancer at the daily.
The victim's condition improved Tuesday although it was still critical, RFI said.
Police have distributed new pictures of the suspected gunman, who appears to be the same man who attacked the offices of the BFM-TV Friday. The suspect is described as white, of average height, 35-40 years of age, wearing glasses and with a salt-and-pepper beard.
Media outlets across Paris were under police protection, Euronews.com reported.
"We have to note the similarity of the four cases -- in the modus operandi, how he was dressed, and the munitions, too," Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters. "Plus the fact that it was a lone aggressor in each case gives us a clue."
