More than 115 people were killed during a hostage crisis before police SWAT teams stormed the Bataclan theater in central Paris at around 1 a.m. Saturday local time, freeing an unknown number of victims and killing three terror suspects, according to a live TV broadcast by CNN.

It was not immediately clear how many hostages died before the rescue operation took place, but it's likely the length of time the police waited will be the subject of scrutiny in the aftermath of the attacks, according to an expert in hostage situations and counterterrorism. "In this case, the police tactical teams should have just gone in straight away, using the quickest preliminary plan they had," said former Army Special Forces Col. Steve Bucci, now director of the Center for Foreign and National Security Policy at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "With their high level of training they could have gone in and used their instincts to resolve this situation quickly."