{"id":233512,"date":"2019-10-05T01:16:23","date_gmt":"2019-10-05T05:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=233512"},"modified":"2019-10-05T01:16:23","modified_gmt":"2019-10-05T05:16:23","slug":"paris-police-force-attack-treated-as-possible-terror-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/10\/05\/paris-police-force-attack-treated-as-possible-terror-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Paris police force attack treated as possible terror act"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The longtime police employee stabbed four colleagues to death Thursday before he was shot and killed. (Pixabay Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PARIS \u2014 French prosecutors opened an investigation Friday that treats the fatal knife attack that a civilian employee carried out at Paris police headquarters as a potential act of terrorism.<\/p>\n

The longtime police employee stabbed four colleagues to death Thursday before he was shot and killed. A background search led to the investigation for murders committed \u201cin relation with a terrorist enterprise\u201d and \u201ccriminal association with terrorists,\u201d the Paris prosecutors’ office said.<\/p>\n

The office announced the decision in a two-line statement and provided no details about the evidence that persuaded prosecutors a terror investigation was warranted.<\/p>\n

David Le Bars, head of the Union of National Police Commissioners, told French broadcaster BFM TV it came from easily accessible sources found in a search of the attacker’s home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that searching through his computer histories, the websites visited, his relations, we would quickly have some information,\u201d Le Bars said.<\/p>\n

He called the suspicion the slayings of three police officers and an administrator resulted from an extremist plot \u201ca cataclysm\u201d since the attacker worked for the police department. A fifth person was seriously injured.<\/p>\n

The 45-year-old employee worked as a technology administrator in the Paris police intelligence unit. Investigators scoured the man’s computer and cellphone Friday for clues to his motive.<\/p>\n

They also interviewed witnesses and his wife, who was taken into custody Thursday, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n

The wife told police her husband, who was deaf, had visions and made incoherent statements during the night before the attack BFM TV and France Info reported.<\/p>\n

The French government said Friday morning there was nothing to suggest the armed attacker had any ties to extremist groups.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors issued the statement about the investigation in the afternoon, three hours a news conference where Paris police chief Didier Lallement made no mention of possible extremist links, saying only, \u201cWe don’t rule out any hypothesis at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authorities said the attacker had worked for the Paris police force since 2003, didn’t have a history of psychiatric problems, and converted to Islam 18 months ago.<\/p>\n

At the news conference Friday, Lallement said the rookie officer who shot the stabber completed police academy training six days before the attack.<\/p>\n

Assigned to security duty at the large police compound across the street from Notre Dame Cathedral, the rookie ran into the courtyard to counter the attack and confronted the 45-year-old administrator, Lallement said.<\/p>\n

The police force held a minute of silence in the same courtyard on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve been hurt at the heart, but we are still standing,\u201d the police chief said.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Nicolas Vaux-Montagny contributed to the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2014 French prosecutors opened an investigation Friday that treats the fatal knife attack that a civilian employee carried out …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":168697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-sylvie-corbet","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233513,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233512\/revisions\/233513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}