Deaf Islamic convert is named as Paris police HQ attacker:
As expected. Sadly. From the Daily Mail
A deaf civilian police worker who had recently converted to Islam was shot dead in Paris today after murdering four colleagues with a ceramic knife. The London Bridge terrorist murderers used ceramic knives. Aparently they don’t show up on metal detection arches, which most important civic buildings have these days, even for well established employees. The use of a ceramic knife suggests a degree of planning. The French might be noted for their high standards of cuisine, but I can’t imagine a knife of that standard would be normal kit in the office cubby hole.
Michael Harpon, 45, caused the bloodbath in the French capital’s historic Police Prefecture, next door to Notre Dame Cathedral.
Investigators have not ruled out a possible terrorist motivation for the Thursday afternoon attack, which left a woman administrator and three men dead.
All were repeatedly stabbed by Harpon, who had worked in the IT department at the Prefecture since 2003, in the worst loss of French police lives in a single day since World War II.
Within hours of the attack, anti-terrorist officers had raided Harpon’s flat in an apartment block at Gonesse, a suburb some 12 miles from the scene of the attack.
His wife, Iham, was arrested, as an investigating source said that the nature of Harpon’s attack corresponded with similar ones carried out by terrorists affiliated to Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.
‘An investigation has been launched into a grudge the assailant may have held against his colleagues, but terrorism cannot be ruled out,’ said the source. ‘Many of those involved in similar attacks on the police have been Muslim converts influenced by radical terrorist groups.’
Harpon, who was deaf since childhood, was originally from the Caribbean island of Martinique – a French overseas territory. He had been married since 2014, and converted to his wife’s religion in 2018 before they had their first child together.
The Paris knifeman lies dead on the ground in the courtyard of police headquarters
after killing four officers in a rampage today