But knowing French authorities, they’ll certainly do everything they possibly can do in order to rule it out. We will doubtless start hearing soon about how Michael Harpon was mentally ill, or was harassed by “Islamophobic” colleagues, or both.
“Deaf Islamic convert is named as Paris police HQ attacker: IT worker who fell out with supervisor ‘after he refused to deal with women’ slaughters four colleagues, including female officer, with a knife – as police arrest Muslim wife,” by Jack Newman, Tim Stickings and Peter Allen, MailOnline, October 3, 2019:
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 following a ‘dispute over working with female colleagues’.
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 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.
Harpon had recently been reprimanded by his female boss over his refusal to interact with women, Actu17 reported.
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.’
Christophe Crépin, spokesman for the union France Police Policeman in Anger, told The Telegraph: ‘I know this man. He worked in IT and he had long-running problems with his superior. He stabbed her first and then colleagues intervened and were stabbed as well. I am told he then got hold of a firearm.’
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….