Okay, I’ve tried to explain to my wife that someday all those hours wasted playing Quake and Unreal might pay off. After all, you never know when you might be stuck in France and trapped in the middle of a rocket duel between a drug dealer and police:
Saphir Bghouia, 25, was killed by a police team on Sunday morning after using a Kalashnikov assault rifle to kill an aide to the Mayor of Béziers and hitting two police cars with rounds from a Russian-made rocket launcher. An accomplice was still at large last night.
…
Police chased Bghouia around the town through the night while he harangued them over his mobile phone, shouting Islamic slogans. Eventually he challenged them to face him in a “man-to-man” duel. The police accepted in a ploy to lure him to an unpopulated area. They arranged to meet him in the car park of an exhibition centre in mid-morning
And Europeans think the United States has a small arms problem. Sheesh.
Source:
Killer dies in rocket-launcher duel. Charles Bremner, The Times (UK), September 4, 2001.