On 9 January 2015,
Amedy Coulibaly, who had pledged allegiance to the
Islamic State, attacked the people in a
Hypercacher kosher food supermarket at
Porte de Vincennes in east Paris. He killed four people, all of whom were
Jewish, and took several hostages. Some media outlets claimed he had a female accomplice, speculated initially to be his common-law wife,
Hayat Boumeddiene. Coulibaly was later confirmed to be the gunman in
a shooting in
Montrouge the previous day. In that shooting he killed a
municipal police officer, Clarissa Jean-Philippe. A witness stated, "People were buying things when a man came in with a rifle and started shooting in all directions. I ran out. The shooting continued for several seconds." Coulibaly recorded seven minutes of his attack using a
GoPro camera attached to his torso, and emailed a copy of the footage using a computer at the supermarket. The video included the deaths of three of the victims. In an interview with
BFMTV during an ensuing standoff, Coulibaly stated that he targeted the Jews at the Kosher grocery to defend Muslims, notably Palestinians. Due to a mobile phone line that was unintentionally left open, Coulibaly's dialogue with his hostages was recorded and transcribed by
RTL (French radio). Coulibaly said his action was revenge for the Syrian government action and against the Western coalition actions in Mali, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Lassana Bathily, a
Malian-born
Muslim shop assistant, was also hailed as a hero in the hostage crisis for hiding people from the gunman and assisting police after his escape. During the hostage crisis, Bathily helped hide hostages in a
cold storage container in the basement. Bathily then tried to call the police, but the line was busy, so he called his friend, a Frenchman named Dennis Mercier, and Mercier alerted the authorities about the hostage situation by flagging down a policeman. When Coulibaly opened fire in the store, killing Cohen, Hattab, Saada, and Braham and taking hostages, Bathily led fifteen people into the downstairs cold storage room for safety. Bathily was then able to escape alone by slipping out of the store using elevator equipment. Upon leaving the store, he was immediately handcuffed and arrested by police who suspected him of playing a role in the attack. He was released after an hour and a half. Bathily also provided the officers with a key to open the store's metal blinds. Coulibaly was reportedly in contact with the Kouachi brothers as the sieges of both him and the brothers progressed simultaneously, and told police that he would kill hostages if the brothers were harmed. Nearby schools were placed under lock-down, and local Jewish businesses were shut down as a precaution. In 2015, several hostages sued French media over its coverage; in particular the French 24-hour news channel
BFMTV. The lawyer representing the group,
Patrick Klugman, said that hostages' lives were endangered by the coverage which revealed a cold room as one of their hiding places. ==Police intervention==