Paris grocery employee extolled as a hero
A 24-year-old Muslim employee of the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris is being called a hero after his quick thinking saved several customers during Friday's hostage situation.
Mali-born Lassana Bathily led a group of hostages downstairs to a walk-in freezer as gunman Amedy Coulibaly allegedly prepared to kill them, CNN reports. Bathily turned the freezer and a light off, and announced that he would be the one to go upstairs, leaving the group safely behind.
Bathily told French television station BFMTV he went into a freight elevator, and ran outside. He was stopped by police, and after explaining who he was told the officers how to get to the freezer. "When [the hostages] came out, they congratulated me," Bathily said.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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