Garda on Primetime

Beruthiel

Did you see it?

I was appalled to learn last night that 4 million euro of our tax money had been handed out over the last few years in compensation to people wrongly arrested/beaten up by the Garda and not one of them has been sacked! We have no proper set up in this country to try and convict a cop for misuse of his position. So basically, it would seem that a cop can just about get away with anything in this country, it doesn’t make me feel all that safe while passing a cop on the way home on a Saturday night.

gandalf

Yep was appalled by it as well. The 2 fo 3 lads who were arrested for breaking a car wing mirror was really pathetic. The video footage (the Gardai's own footage) showed that they just brushed against it.

Those Gardai should be removed from their jobs. The most galling thing was the Head of Human Resources for the Gardai when they talked about the Committee for Torture (sorry forgotten their full name) and their report and why the Gardai hadn't acted upon it. He said they didn't have specific information, yet Primetime got the details with 2 phone calls, now correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the Gardai a investigative force?

Gandalf.

Beruthiel

Originally posted by gandalf
Those Gardai should be removed from their jobs. The most galling thing was the Head of for the Gardai when they talked about the Committee for Torture (sorry forgotten their full name) and their report and why the Gardai hadn't acted upon it. He said they didn't have specific information, yet Primetime got the details with 2 phone calls, now correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the Gardai a investigative force?

it certainly was the impression I was under, the Human Resources cop came across as a complete thicko who tried his best to wriggle out of the perfectly logical questions being asked of him, he is useless in his position imo, his excuses for not investigating were ones you wouldn’t accept from a 5 year old.
I'm disgusted, I want to complain to someone, but who?

Sleipnir

I was appalled at the english spoken by one of those 3 lads arrested.
"Somebody ringed his mobile"
And he said it twice too!

They need a proper police ombudsmad, like the one for the PSNI.
She was saying that she has powers to arrest police officers and does not need to give any notice when visiting a station.
Here, they have to give 48 hrs notice :rolleyes:

The problem is that they are a 'self-policing police force'
They manage their own disiplinary procedures (very badly too quite obviously)
which just doesn't work.

redflaremist

Originally posted by Beruthiel
I'm disgusted, I want to complain to someone, but who?

There is a street theatre performance/action called "No Justice, No Peace" which is focusing on Garda and State violence, taking place at the gates of Dublin Castle on Thursday January 22nd, to coincide with the EU Justice Ministers meeting. Everyone is welcome to come along and watch or even participate.

If you're looking for more information click here: http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=62878

Originally posted by Kananga
I was appalled at the english spoken by one of those 3 lads arrested.
"Somebody ringed his mobile"
And he said it twice too!

Oh come on, get off your high grammar horse. You knew exactly what he meant, who cares about the structure of the sentence.

Camille

MICHAEL MC DOWELL SAYS HE IS SETTING UP POLICE OMBUDSMAN / INSPECTORATE, BUT EVEN AT THAT THEY WILL BE REQUIRED TO GIVE 48 HOURS NOTICE WHEN INVESTIGATING OR VISTING A POLICE STATION. TYPICAL. GUESS ITS BETTER THAN AT THE MOMENT, WHERE WE HAVE A COMPLAINTS BOARD WHO HAND OVER COMPLAINTS FOR INVESTIGATION TO.....THE GARDAI.

Sleipnir

Originally posted by redflaremist
Oh come on, get off your high grammar horse. You knew exactly what he meant, who cares about the structure of the sentence.

ur rite. inglish dosnt mater ass long ass u get de mesege a kros. hed probly jused bin nirvus!!!!

Twas only a small bit of humour redflaremist, easy now.

Sleipnir

Originally posted by Camille
MICHAEL MC DOWELL SAYS HE IS SETTING UP POLICE OMBUDSMAN / INSPECTORATE, BUT EVEN AT THAT THEY WILL BE REQUIRED TO GIVE 48 HOURS NOTICE WHEN INVESTIGATING OR VISTING A POLICE STATION. TYPICAL. GUESS ITS BETTER THAN AT THE MOMENT, WHERE WE HAVE A COMPLAINTS BOARD WHO HAND OVER COMPLAINTS FOR INVESTIGATION TO.....THE GARDAI.

I loved the bit where he said he hadn't decided whether or not to call it an ombudsman or an inspectorate. But he will decide soon.
I just had a mental image of him sitting in his office going
"ombudsman........inspectorate.........ombudsman.........inspectorate..........

Just bleedin set it up! Call it "Willy Wonka's Gardai sorting out thing" or whatever the hell you want just do it!!!!

aodh_rua

I was appalled at the Assistant Commissioner. Fair play to Brendan O'Brien - he managed to pull him in hook line and sinker on the Store St incident and again with the case of the sisters in Pearse St. From the Garda point of view - his performance is going to be very hard to explain away. If it had been a press officer then they could have wheeled out the 'real' guard to explain why the spokesperson couldn't answer - but by immediately putting out a senior member of the force they've left themselves nowhere to go.

On the broader issue - as well as the violence problem - they could easily make another programme on the allegations of extortion and blackmail that are part and parcel of the image of rural policing. You know - wealthy businessman gets stopped for drink driving Garda says that the ticket could be made go away for a significant cash sum. Or the local Gardai expecting free dinners in restaurants, etc.

Without saying where - my local station at home was having trouble with items being robbed from the Garda locker room. Allegedly, they installed covert cameras and it turned out to be a guard robbing from his colleagues. The Garda solution was to move him and try and keep things quiet. Apparently - if they'd attempted to bring him through the criminal justice system it would have placed a question mark over every conviction he'd secured.

Makes me sick.

redflaremist

Originally posted by Kananga

"ombudsman........inspectorate.........ombudsman.........inspectorate..........

Just bleedin set it up! Call it "Willy Wonka's Gardai sorting out thing" or whatever the hell you want just do it!!!!

I think Ombudsman sounds more independent. "Garda Inspectorate" sounds way too much like "Garda Inspector" to my ears.

Camille

Scary premonition....Pat Byrne as new Garda Ombudsman

rubadub

the best bit was the garda warning the guy "a big black will take you up the gary glitter, but you'd probably like that"
good to see a good healthy racist and homophobic attitude in our police force, great role model for the kids

the garda "spokesman" being interviewed made a fool of himself, typical garda robot

Originally posted by Camille
MICHAEL MC DOWELL SAYS HE IS SETTING UP POLICE OMBUDSMAN / INSPECTORATE, BUT EVEN AT THAT THEY WILL BE REQUIRED TO GIVE 48 HOURS NOTICE WHEN INVESTIGATING OR VISTING A POLICE STATION. TYPICAL. GUESS ITS BETTER THAN AT THE MOMENT, WHERE WE HAVE A COMPLAINTS BOARD WHO HAND OVER COMPLAINTS FOR INVESTIGATION TO.....THE GARDAI.

I believe the 48 hours notice is being abandoned, I think from what I heard on morning Ireland this morning, but am not sure.
Congratulations to RTÉ by the way for last nights programme. This is the way I'd like to see licence payers money being used, ie highlighting the wrongs committed by some security force members who should know better and other excelent investigative journalism.
It's shocking and appalling that these things can go on and that no Garda is disiplined.
That said, the vast majority of Gardaí are decent and honerable people but you can never account for some peoples real attitudes and predjuces when they join a force.
Just like a recent BBC undercover programme into racism in the manchester police showed.
In that programme, the arresting of black youths for no reason only racism was uncovered as being widespread.

I thought Nuala O' Loans piece about her powers in the North was interesting. That ombudsmans office obviously got the powers as a special case, but really, a slimmed down version of the same thing for here would have less work and be much less costly to run than the one in the North.
Gardaí investigating other Gardaí is simply not on and in normal legal circumstances, it would be judged as a conflict of interest.

Imposter

I'm almost sure I remember reading an article in Time Magazine about 2 months back which talked about some EU department, warning the Guards to clear up the corruption within the force and appoint an ombudsman.

I remember I did a search at the time on the interweb for more info but i didn't find anything.

Will root it out at the weekend unless someone else knows what i'm talking about.

mycroft

I met Nuala O'Loan last year, she's a remarkable woman doing an amazing job in Northern Ireland. Whats impressive is her office is used by both protestant and catholics in numbers consistent with population demographics (i.e 60% Protestant 40%* Catholic, similar numbers to the break down of the population of the north.) Showing how they've managed to reach out to both sides in the community.

Incidently the gardaí who used racist language and suggested a suspect would be raped, is two times all Ireland hurling winner for Kilkenny, ***** *******.

(Name edited for the moment. If you can show me a public source that has named this guy we can put it back. - Gandalf)










* Numbers are a guestimate

uaobrien

Originally posted by Beruthiel
Did you see it?

I was appalled to learn last night that 4 million euro of our tax money had been handed out over the last few years in compensation to people wrongly arrested/beaten up by the Garda and not one of them has been sacked! We have no proper set up in this country to try and convict a cop for misuse of his position. So basically, it would seem that a cop can just about get away with anything in this country, it doesn’t make me feel all that safe while passing a cop on the way home on a Saturday night.

Okay, I know I'm being smart and no offence intended, but where have you been. Its been a well known fact that there is "no-one to watch the watchmen" in Ireland for years.

Case in point. There is a local shop where I live run by an ex-Garda sergeant who was fired for running a brothel on the side of his daily job. The reason he was caught was not some law abiding citizen, but a Templemore newbie found out and reported him directly to the Inspector of the station. When nothing was done the newbie complained to a TD and then the local press.

The guy was fired, not arrested, not incarcerated, just fired. The newbie was sent to the back end of nowhere and that was all anyone ever heard of him. But safe to surmise his career progress ended the day he first complained about the sergeant.

Now here's the kicker. I overheard the wife of the shop-owner talking about holidays they plan on taking and the person she was talking to mentioned that they must be doing well in the shop and she said the money to pay for the holidays would be coming out of his pension. I doubt she meant the standard social welfare pension. So I intimate that the Gardai are still paying a pension to the guy for service in the organization.

Imposter

Found it.
Time article on Garda corruption

gucci

Originally posted by Kananga
I loved the bit where he said he hadn't decided whether or not to call it an ombudsman or an inspectorate. But he will decide soon.
I just had a mental image of him sitting in his office going
"ombudsman........inspectorate.........ombudsman.........inspectorate..........

Just bleedin set it up! Call it "Willy Wonka's Gardai sorting out thing" or whatever the hell you want just do it!!!!

yes a similuar skit conversation was made in my gaff with me and my mate reckoning that there would be A competition on DEN tv for the name or a phone vote after the show!

sionnach

ne1 know if/when this program will be repeated? i would very much like to see it

Sparks

It was repeated last night around 0200 or so (which is how I caught it) and no doubt will be repeated after midnight next week too.

'Bout time this stuff was aired though. I've already had one research student in the lab get harrassed and intimidated by gardai, allegedly for loitering (in front of a cinema, no less), but in reality because he was black and, being american, used to having civil rights. Turns out that not tugging the forelock to a garda when you're black is not a good idea.
Who'd have thunk it?
Lousy bastards, the pair of them. The kind of abuse hurled at the poor kid was stuff the KKK wouldn't say in private, and they had to have been a decade older than he was. So guess what? Instead of staying on and doing more research, he left and went back to the states. Well done there lads :mad:

sovtek

The 3 plus years I've been here I honestly can remember only one or two occasions where I witnessed someone being arrested that wasn't beaten. I assumed it to be official operating procedure.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Kappar

Posted this in the other thread in after hours thought it would be useful here too


This is a peice from the Report to the Government of Ireland on the visit to Ireland carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman
or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) from 20 to 28 May 2002

"2. Ill-treatment


11. Many of the persons interviewed by the CPT’s delegation about their experience while in police custody stated that they had been correctly treated by the police.

However, a not inconsiderable number of persons claimed that they had been physically ill-treated by police officers (Gardaí). Most of the allegations received concerned the time of arrest, including after the detained person had been brought under control, or during transport to a police station; some complaints related to ill-treatment in cells or detention areas in police stations. In certain cases the ill-treatment alleged was said to have been inflicted by officers trying to obtain information or secure a confession from the detained person.

The allegations involved in the main blows with batons, as well as kicks and punches to various parts of the body. On occasion, the ill-treatment alleged was of a severe nature. In a few cases, the delegation was told that the ill-treatment had been administered in such a way as to avoid leaving visible marks, e.g. baton blows to a telephone directory placed against the detainee’s head or pressure with a baton behind the knee.

12. The number and consistency of the allegations of ill-treatment heard by the delegation lend them credibility. Moreover, in some cases, the delegation’s doctors gathered medical evidence consistent with the allegations received. By way of example, the CPT would like to make reference to the following cases:

One person interviewed in Cork Prison alleged that, the day before, four or five police officers had dragged him down the stairs at the Anglesea Street police facilities and repeatedly struck him with batons. Following his arrival at Cork, the prison doctor had noted “4 fresh marks on back, prior to committal”. Upon medical examination by the delegation’s doctors, the person concerned was found to display two recent red horizontal bruises measuring approximately 3 x 9 cm, respectively in the left and right upper lumbar/kidney area, and a further similar bruise in the left shoulder region; he also displayed a number of abrasions and smaller bruises on the legs.

One person interviewed in Cloverhill Prison alleged that, a few days earlier, at the time of his arrest, the police had twisted his wrist and that, subsequently, at Store Street Garda Station, a police officer had delivered several baton blows in the direction of his head which he had stopped with his left arm. The police reported no physical force/violence or injuries at any time of this person’s custody, and the doctor who examined him on police premises approximately five hours after his arrest only found handcuff marks on the right wrist and injection marks on the lower arms. However, during medical screening on arrival in prison the following morning, he was found to display “superficial haematomas and contusions on the lower left arm”. A medical examination by the delegation’s doctors revealed a purple 6 x 3 cm haematoma along the antero-external face of the lower left arm in the proximity of the elbow and, next to it, another haematoma of similar size and characteristics.

Another person (who at the time of the visit was no longer deprived of his liberty) interviewed by the delegation in Dublin alleged that, one week previously, the police had treated him roughly at the time of his arrest and that, subsequently, at Store Street Garda Station, police officers had assaulted him several times (kicks to the legs and blows to the head) and that, on one occasion, while he was being manually restrained, an officer had struck him six or seven times on the right thigh with a baton. He claimed that, despite his requests, he had not been medically examined during custody. A medical examination by the delegation’s doctors revealed a yellowish 4 x 2 cm haematoma on the right thigh in the proximity of the groin, a yellow and red 10 x 8 cm haematoma with a blue central part on the middle section of the right thigh, a similar 7 x 7 cm haematoma immediately above the right knee, and a further 6 x 3 cm haematoma on the inner part of the central section of the lower right leg; he displayed a number of other smaller bruises on both legs.

It should also be noted that, in certain of the cases examined during the visit, other evidence gathered by the CPT’s delegation (e.g. from custody records, information provided by police officers) tended to support the allegations of ill-treatment received."

Now from the 1993 report the 1993 report reads more or less the same except for something shocking

17. Several of the allegations heard by the CPT's delegation related to Finglas Garda Station in Dublin. In consequence, the delegation decided to carry out a visit to that establishment. In the course of the visit, the delegation discovered a large number of non standard-issue weapons in the areas and, more particularly, in the desk drawers and lockers, used by the detective unit based there.
Those items included various home-made wooden batons (quite unlike ordinary police truncheons) and a variety of real and replica guns (e.g. two sawn-off shotguns, a pipe pistol, a bolt gun, a replica of a Beretta 9mm pistol) several hunting knives, and a short, leather-covered metal cosh.

18. It was advanced by police officers that the above-mentioned items had been confiscated from detainees and would be, or had been, produced in court as evidence. However, both the fact that none of those items bore labels or other means of identification, and the fact that they were found in drawers and lockers in different parts of the police station, undermines the credibility of that contention, as does the fact that certain other items, labelled as evidence, were found in a property store.

I urge every one to read all three repoerts and responses from the CPT here

slieveb

Originally posted by sionnach
ne1 know if/when this program will be repeated? i would very much like to see it

You can download off the RTE site. Pictures a bit blurry but if you really want to see it...

mike65

Originally posted by Sparks

Who'd have thunk it?

The grammar police will be required round here soon!

I saw the prog and was'nt too shocked at the lack of interest of the gardai in thier own mis-behaviour. Its quite obvious that the average garda on the street at night feels like a target for thugs and so is aggressive
to all an sundry. Training out in the sticks at Templemore
is hardly the right environment these days...

Mike.

ps was I the only one to think something silly like -

Adopt Fox voiceover stylee

When Cops Go Bad!

while listening to Brendan O'Briens "fulsome" narrative?

gom

Who will police the police?

Kappar

Who will police the police?

Don't know, em, coastgaurd?

Sparks

Originally posted by mike65
The grammar police will be required round here soon!

[pedant]
From Websters:

Main Entry: thunk
Pronunciation: 'th&[ng]k
dialect past and past participle of THINK

[/pedant]

luckat

It's all horribly reminiscent of the Catholic Church's ham-handed handling of the child abuse horrors.

When will these cartels learn that the policy of closing ranks to protect crooks is not a sensible policy?

From what I've heard, most guards *want* independent investigations of the crooks and brutes - but they daren't say so, because the corruption goes to the top and their careers would end there if they opened their mouths.

sovtek

In America the idea of a citizens review board is often proposed, usually after some idiot cop kills an innocent person. Although it is usually rejected and I'm not aware of any one force that has one, I still think it's a good idea. I see no reason why that wouldn't work here.

mike65

Originally posted by Sparks
[pedant]
From Websters:

Main Entry: 1thunk
Pronunciation: 'th&[ng]k
dialect past and past participle ofTHINK

[/pedant]

Is'nt Websters an American dictionary? 'nuff said.

Mike.