Hunt for motive of employee who killed four at Paris police headquarters

Four people were killed in the knife attack in Paris by a police employee

epa07892449 French police and security forces establish a security perimeter near the police headquarters where a man was attacking officers with a knife in Paris, France, 03 October 2019. According to recent reports, five people were killed, including the attacker.  EPA/IAN LANGSDON
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Investigators combed an IT worker's computer on Friday for clues as to why he stabbed four colleagues to death at police headquarters in Paris.

His wife told officers he had been "agitated" before going on a rampage with a kitchen knife.

The 45-year-old killed three men and a woman -- three police officers and an administrative staffer -- in a frenzied 30-minute attack that ended when he was shot in the head.

Two others were injured in the lunchtime stabbing spree that sent shock waves through an embattled force already complaining of low morale.

The attacker's wife told investigators her husband, who had a severe hearing disability, had displayed "unusual and agitated behaviour" the night before his crime.

A search of the couple's house in a low-income Paris suburb near the Charles de Gaulle airport found no evidence that the man, who converted to Islam about 18 months ago, had been driven to his criminal deed by radical religious ideology, an official said.

Computer equipment seized in the search was being examined on Friday.

The man, born in the French Caribbean territory of Martinique, was employed as a computer scientist in the intelligence branch at police headquarters, right next to the Notre-Dame cathedral in the historic heart of Paris.

He had worked there since 2003 until Thursday, when he committed the deadliest attack on police in France in years.

Shortly after the killings, Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said anti-terror investigators were not involved in the murder probe.

All possible motives were being examined including the scenario of a personal conflict at work.

"He was a very quiet person. I used to see him going to the mosque but he practised (his religion) in a normal way," a neighbour, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

Locals said the man had two children aged three and nine.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said the assailant had "never shown any behavioural problems".

The man had used a kitchen knife to stab two policemen and a male administrative colleague in two offices on the first floor of the building, before attacking two women on the staircase on his way to the courtyard outside.

One was a police officer who died at the scene. The other, an administrative worker, was seriously injured.

The assailant wounded another policeman in the courtyard before he was shot in the head by a colleague, sources told AFP.

The lives of the two wounded colleagues are not in danger, a source said Friday.

Thursday's killings came amid growing tensions within the ranks of the police, stretched to the limit after months of containing weekly "yellow vest" anti-government demonstrations, and years of high alert following a string of terror attacks in France.

Thousands of police officers marched in Paris on Wednesday for better working conditions, a rare protest that took place against the backdrop of a spike in police suicides -- 52 so far this year.