• Paris: A convert kills four people inside the Police Headquarters

The police officer who killed four colleagues stabbed yesterday before being killed at the Paris Headquarters had hallucinations the night before , as his wife reported when questioned.

Research sources cited by BFMTV and France Info have said Friday that the woman, who was arrested after the attack, said that Mickaël H. had visions and heard voices that night, and that she woke up startled.

Law enforcement registered their address in the town of Gonesse, north of the French capital, where they searched for computer equipment and phones to be examined.

The murderer, who was 45 years old and worked since 2003 as a computer scientist in the Paris Police Prefecture, was deaf and speech-impaired, and had converted to Islam a little less than a year ago.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said a few hours after the attack that the aggressor had never had behavioral problems or had given warning signs.

"We have no indications of a possible radicalization," said the spokeswoman for the Government, Sibeth Ndiaye, on Friday to the station France Info and added that the Public Ministry does not consider it to be terrorist acts.

An investigation has been opened for homicides and attempted homicides against depositories of the public authority, without a terrorist qualification.

The Paris prosecutor, Rémi Heitz , who is in charge of the case, has stated that he is in contact with the National Counter-Terrorist Prosecutor's Office in case there are elements about the motivations of the author of the massacre that would lead to a change in the qualification of the facts.

Wide security perimeter

The events occurred yesterday at 1:00 p.m. (11.00 GMT), inside the Police headquarters. The aggressor used a kitchen knife first against colleagues in his office , in the Information Directorate, and then went out to other units until he was neutralized in the yard. Three of the fatalities are women and the fourth a man.

Emery Siamandi, an interpreter who was in the place, told the press that he heard some shots, and that seconds later he saw three policemen crying out.

At first, Siamandi believed that he was an agent who had committed suicide, but quickly understood that one of the agents who cried was the one who had shot down the attacker with his gun , who had refused to release the knife.

In a few minutes, law enforcement officials established a security perimeter around the building of the Police Prefecture that was expanded and ended up covering the entire central island of La Cité, with police barriers on all access and closing bridges from the Cité metro station.

For hours only access to police vehicles, ambulances and some official cars such as that of French President Emmanuel Macron was allowed, who wanted to take an interest in the events and express "his support and solidarity" to the officials.

The French Prime Minister, Édouard Philippe, and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo also moved there, who said in a message on his Twitter account that he thought first of all "of the families of the victims and their relatives."

The drama happened less than 24 hours after thousands of police (between 22,000 and 28,000, according to the unions) had demonstrated in Paris to denounce the working conditions they live on a daily basis, in a context marked by the crisis of the "yellow vests ".

Conditions that attribute the wave of suicides in this group : since the beginning of the year, there have been at least 51 police suicides in France, well above the 35 that took their lives in 2018.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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