French police capture gunman alive in Toulouse bank standoff, freeing all hostages unharmed Updated at 11:15 a.m. (AP) TOULOUSE, France - A gunman who authorities say had past psychiatric problems was captured alive after taking four people hostage Wednesday in a bank in the southern French city of Toulouse, claiming he was acting for religious reasons. Regional police official Frederic Tamisier said the hostage-taker was lightly injured in the operation to capture him. The hostages were unharmed, he said. The announcement came soon after a series of gunshots were heard from the area of the bank. The incident plunged this city in fear for the second time in recent months. In Wednesday's incident, a man with a firearm entered a CIC bank branch in central Toulouse at about 11 a.m. ET) and took the bank director and three other people hostage, police officials said. Previously, the gunman released one hostage mid-afternoon, a woman in her late 20s, a police union official said. Toulouse Mayor Pierre Cohen said the gunman had been known to authorities for having psychiatric problems. He did not identify the hostage-taker. French Prosecutor Michel Valet said that during negotiations, the gunman said he wanted to advertise the religious motivation behind his act. "The hostage-taker ... wants us to make it known that he is acting not for money, and that his motivations come from his religious conviction," Valet told reporters at the scene. He did not say what faith the gunman adheres to. French media reports say the gunman is claiming allegiance to al Qaeda. Police officials who spoke to The Associated Press could not confirm this claim. A gunshot was fired early in the hostage-taking. Residents and police heard another shot fired mid-afternoon, but the source of the shot was unclear. The neighborhood around the bank was cordoned off, and neighboring buildings were evacuated. Officers from a specialized police unit, the GIPN, were at the scene. Doriane Clermont, 23, lives across the street from the bank with her 3-year-old son - and said she's "thinking of moving." "I'm worried about the climate that reigns in this city," she said, waiting behind the police barrier to be able to return home after she was evacuated. Resident Maria Gomes was similarly unsettled. "We were walking when we heard great agitation in the neighborhood, with police cars," she said. Fear is coming back, after the Merah affair.