PARIS, FRENCH, GESAHKITA COM–A man was shot dead by police after a teacher was reportedly decapitated by an enraged parent in Paris this evening. The shocking incident happened near a school in Conflans St Honorine, a suburb in the north of the French capital at roughly 5pm local time.
The unidentified killer then fled to the nearby town of Eragny-sur-Oise, around two miles away, where he refused to surrender. Police shot the armed suspect multiple times, according to reports from the scene.
The attacker reportedly shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ in the street before he was gunned down by officers. The dead man was said to have been a school teacher who had enraged parents by displaying cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to pupils, according to French media.
A source told Le Parisien: “The victim had recently given a lesson to his students on freedom of expression and had shown the caricatures of Muhammad.”
This led to an enraged parent confronting the teacher with a kitchen knife, and then cutting his head off, said the source.
A police spokesman has confirmed the victim was a middle school teacher. France’s anti-terror prosecutor PNAT has opened an investigation into the horrific crime.
“The body of decapitated man was found at around 5.30 in the afternoon,” said an investigating source.
“When police arrived, the person thought to be responsible was still present and threatened them with his weapons.”
Witnesses watched the man decapitating his unnamed victim – who was also male – in broad daylight, and close to a school.
Officers rushed to the scene after the alarm was raising, and watched the killer running away, towards Eragny.
“He was waving a gun by this time and further threatened officers,” said the source.
“This is when he was shot dead by police. Around ten shots were heard.”
By 7pm local time, the scene of the suspected murder, and the scene where the killer was himself gunned down, had been sealed off.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin was ‘making his way to the scene of the attack,’ said a spokesman for his ministry, who also confirmed a terrorist investigation was underway.
There have been a series of bomb, gun and knife attacks carried out by Islamic State and al-Qaeda operatives in France, dating back to early 2015. The deadliest single terrorist attack ever in the country came in November 2015 when 130 people were killed in Paris.
Suicide bombers pledging allegiance to ISIS targeted the Stade de France, cafes, restaurants and the Bataclan music venue, where 90 died.
Earlier in the year, two Paris-born gunmen linked to Al-Qaeda broke into the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, leaving 17 people dead inside and three outside.
In July 2016, 86 people were killed and more than 400 injured when a 19-tonne truck was deliberately driven into crowds on the seafront promenade at Nice, in the South of France.
The terrorist turned out to be a Tunisian immigrant who was shot dead by police.
During the same month, two Isis terrorists murdered an 86-year-old Catholic priest during a church service in Normandy.
There have been frequent knife attacks on the forces of law and order, leading to the deaths of serving police.
In October last year, a radicalised computer operative working at the Paris Prefecture in central Paris stabbed four of his colleagues to death.
The attacker – who was also shot dead – turned out to be a Muslim convert who kept extremist Al-Qaeda and Islamic State literature and images on his computer.(*)
Compiled EuroNews Now
