STABBING TERROR

Four killed in crazed attack at Paris police headquarters

FOUR people including three police officers were killed when a civilian worker at Paris’s police headquarters went on a knife rampage.

The man, an IT administrator in the intelligence unit, apparently had a grudge against his supervisor.

He began the attack in his office, stabbing three people there and in another office nearby, and then knifed two women on a stairway.

One of the four who died was an administrator.

The worker was shot dead by an armed officer on his lunch break in the courtyard of the police prefecture, across the street from the Notre Dame cathedral on the Île de la Cité, an island on the river Seine in the city centre.

The employee who carried out the attack had worked for the city’s police force since 2003 without ever arousing concerns, said Interior Minister Christophe Castaner.

“There were no warning signs,” he said. “This man was known inside the computer department; he worked alongside his colleagues and never presented any behavioural difficulties.”

Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said authorities had begun a murder investigation, for the moment ruling out a terrorism inquiry. There were some reports the man was a recent convert to Islam.

The 45-year-old assailant’s home was searched and his wife questioned but not detained.

It was reported he carried out the attack with a ceramic knife, which would not have set off metal detectors in the building. The police union later described the attack as “the worst scenario possible”, adding: “Nothing can be ruled out, including a personal issue.”

The killings came a day after thousands of police officers marched in Paris in protest at low wages, long hours and the rising number of suicides in their ranks.

Later yesterday, President Emmanuel Macron visited the police HQ to show solidarity with officers and employees.