Anthony Sadler returns to California after helping stop attack on train to Paris - Los Angeles Times
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Anthony Sadler returns to California after helping stop attack on train to Paris

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One of the three Americans who helped stop a terror attack on a high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris returned home to California on Tuesday.

Video showed Anthony Sadler, 23, walking off a commercial plane at Sacramento International Airport, accompanied by his parents.

The Sacramento State University student was dressed in black shorts and was carrying a black backpack as the family walked onto the tarmac with the rest of the passengers. Instead of using a jetway to the terminal like other passengers, the Sadlers were escorted to a separate entrance.

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They arrived in Sacramento after taking a private jet to Portland, Oregon. Columbia Sportswear CEO Timothy Boyle had made the jet available to fly the Americans’ mothers to France.

Sadler and two Sacramento-area friends, U.S. Air Force Airman Spencer Stone, 23, and Oregon National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, 22, helped subdue Ayoub El Khazzani, a man with ties to radical Islam who was carrying a handgun and an assault weapon on the train Friday.

Stone was undergoing treatment at a military hospital in Germany for injuries suffered in the attack. Skarlatos remained with Stone in Germany.

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Alina Ezzi was at Sacramento’s airport Tuesday in hopes of greeting Sadler after hearing of his pending arrival through the media.

“I’ve just been super interested in it,” said the San Francisco State University student. “It’s a fascinating story: People see what happens and decide to stand up. ... I feel like our society is finally stepping up to the plate.”

She said that sort of heroic behavior should be rewarded after the 9/11 attacks.

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