Paris police IT worker kills colleagues in knife attack at headquarters

A police employee killed four colleagues in a knife attack at police headquarters in Paris on Thursday before being shot dead.

Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said three men and a woman died and a fifth person was critically injured and underwent emergency surgery.

Mr Heitz said three of the dead were police officers and the fourth was an administrative assistant.

The attacker’s home was being searched and authorities were for the moment ruling out a terrorism inquiry, he said.

The attack came a day after police across the country went on strike over working conditions and high levels of violence against officers.

The incident took place about midday in central Paris, near the Notre-Dame Cathedral in an area popular with tourists.

The attacker, 45, worked in the IT department.

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said the attacker was known to colleagues and had worked with the police since 2003.

“He had never presented any

A police union leader said the attack was not an act of terrorism, describing it as a moment of madness

behavioural issues, he had never presented the slightest cause for alarm before going on his deadly rampage today,” Mr Castaner said.

He said police were “particularly stricken by this exceptionally grave incident”.

The man had problems with his supervisor, according to a police official quoted by Franceinfo radio.

“Did he snap, or was there some other reason? It is still too early to say,” Loic Travers, head of the Alliance Police union for the Paris region, told BFM television.

French President Emmanuel Macron went to the scene with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and Mr Castaner.

Mr Macron’s office said the president had made the visit to show solidarity and support for all police officers and employees.

Jean-Marc Bailleul, a police union leader, described the incident as criminal rather than an act of terrorism.

“It was a moment of madness,” he told BFM TV.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote in a tweet that her thoughts were with the families of the victims.

On Wednesday, thousands of French police officers took part in a “march of anger” in Paris to protest against their working conditions, which they said had led to dozens of suicides in the force.

Officials said more than 50 officers had killed themselves since the start of the year.

The demonstration was the first mass police strike in France since 2001.