Paris Police Shoot Suspect Who Attacked Officer With Hammer Near Notre Dame Cathedral, Authorities Say

PARIS (CBSNewYork/CBS News) -- A suspect was shot and wounded by police in Paris Tuesday after authorities said he attacked an officer outside Notre Dame Cathedral with a hammer.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told reporters that the man yelled "this is for Syria" when he came up behind three officers on patrol in front of the cathedral. Collomb said he launched himself onto an officer, striking him with a hammer.

Collomb said that an officer then used his weapon to shoot the suspect, CBS News reported.

"We also found on him knives, kitchen knives, so it's literally with basic tools that he came to attack," Collomb said.

Eyewitnesses said the man was then shot by police, CBS News reported.

PHOTOS: Notre Dame Cathedral Attack

"Two shots rang out, really quick shots," witness Neal Sanche told CBS News. "My wife had looked back toward the square, people were running everywhere away from the area and she saw police with guns trained down to a figure on the ground."

On Twitter, police said one officer was wounded in the attack.

"The police man is OK, he is in a stable condition. His injuries are not too serious," Collomb said. "Obviously, this attack could have been far more serious if his colleague had not reacted so quickly."

The counter-terrorism unit of Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation, CBS News reported. Collomb said the suspect "was on his own."

"From what we understand, there was nobody else," he said. "He was not working in conjunction with anybody."

Tuesday incident is one of the latest in a series of attacks on security officers. In April, one officer was killed and two others were wounded when an attacker opened fire on a police van on the Champs Elysees in Paris. The suspect was shot and killed by police.

The attack Tuesday also comes just days after a separate terror attack in London left seven people dead.