French police chief commits suicide after Charlie Hebdo attack

Helric Fredou, 45, deputy director of the regional judicial police in Limoges shot himself dead at his office hours after he was asked to submit a report on Charlie Hebdo killings.

Fredou was tasked to investigate the family of a victim, yet he died before the submission of the report. The deceased officer was said to have interviewed families of some of the victims.

Helric Fredou had started his police career in 1997 and assumed the charge of deputy director of the regional judicial police in 2012.

Earlier on January 7, twelve people were killed when gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs and a rocket-launcher opened fire in the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

It was like something out of a movie: gunfire, tyres screeching, police sirens and “rivers of blood” as terror descended on a nondescript building in a calm Parisian street.

On January 11, hundreds of thousands of people and dozens of world leaders marched together through Paris Sunday in a historic show of solidarity and defiance after terrorist attacks in the French capital.