Garda Sgt Shot in Crumlin

marcsignal

A third man has been arrested in connection with the shooting of a garda sergeant in Crumlin, Dublin, yesterday morning.

The 17-year-old is being questioned at Rathmines Garda Station in connection with the shooting of Sergeant Mark Clarke, who was hit in the chest and hand.

It has emerged today that he was shot with a single barrel sawn-off shotgun after he approached a parked car.


full story here

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0928/crumlin.html

is it just me ? or is the overall situation here close to total and utter insanity ?

Clearly something needs to be done, anyone any ideas / opinions ??

Darragh29

marcsignal wrote:

A third man has been arrested in connection with the shooting of a garda sergeant in Crumlin, Dublin, yesterday morning.

The 17-year-old is being questioned at Rathmines Garda Station in connection with the shooting of Sergeant Mark Clarke, who was hit in the chest and hand.

It has emerged today that he was shot with a single barrel sawn-off shotgun after he approached a parked car.


full story here

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0928/crumlin.html

is it just me ? or is the overall here situation close to total and utter insanity ?

Clearly something needs to be done, anyone any ideas ??

Yeah defo agree. In this case though as far as I know, attempted murder of a Garda == a capital offence that could carry up to 40 years in prison on conviction. The situation is rightly described by the OP as insanity, this is the only word for it, I wonder was the guy strung out on drugs when he pulled the trigger??? Apparently some of the major gangs involved in drugs have said that they are going to kill a Garda, maybe this is the prediction being played out now???

mike65

Not even top story when it happened either when I haerd about it, so frequent are shootings now. Parts of Dublin and Limerick are now pretty much a law unto themselves.

Mike.

gandalf

A few extra Gardai on the streets would be a good start to sorting out these no go areas!

lostexpectation

Am I wrong in thinking this house was shot at in the morning and then they came back for the guy and the gardai got in the way of some bullets wonder if these gardai were provided with vests?

marcsignal

mike65 wrote:

Not even top story when it happened either

Mike.

i didnt hear about it until today, isn't it unreal ??

our taoiseach doing a 'bad impression of lady diana' makes the headlines, and meanwhile a minor shoots a cop and it almost goes unnoticed ??

i dont like to imagine where this is leading unless the gardai are given the resources to deal with the problem, but i dont think just that will solve or even come close to solving it.

at this stage its clear our legal system is a joke, maybe someone with a legal background could suggest what laws can be ammended or other action can be taken without turning the whole country into a police state ?
it's just it seems the longer it goes on, the more drastic that action is going to have to be, the question is how far can the state go ? and do we have the stomach for it ?

mike65

I'm not that familiar with "De Big Smoke" but its my impression that nearly all such crimes happen in lower class/marginal areas of the city, its certainly the case with Limerick. One can only wonder what the political and judical response might be if the leafier parts of both were under seige from armed scum bags high on coke.

Mike.

marcsignal

yeah your right, most of the time it is working class/marginal areas of dublin but recently there has been a shift. In the last six months or so there was a guy shot in a car in a quiet firhouse estate, and now crumlin village (which isn't exactly 'injun country').
You hear scare stories all the time in the tabloids about the drug situaton being out of control, but i really think this is a new level, and like you say maybe it will probably take a bloodbath at the 'donnybrook fair' to be the catalyst for some action.

telecaster

marcsignal wrote:

most of the time it is working class/marginal areas of dublin

That's not entirely fair. There has been something like 4 murders in Coolock this year. It's not fair to say that Coolock is a marginal area of Dublin. It is not a slum. It is largely populated by mature families who privately bought their houses in the 70s. There is also a significant number of Corporation housing estates in the area too, but they are all tongue and grooved with the private estates and have been so for decades.

But now some nuts around the estates have guns, and they are using them. It's not LA ghetto stuff and no-go areas - there are working citizens going about their daily normal lives - but mixed in among this are drug gangs and teenagers driving around the place with guns.

There's no doubting the drugs are the main reason guns have come in to the city, and drug use is certainly not restricted to what have been termed working class or marginal areas. There are regular drug users in every strata of Irish society - all feeding in to the money machine which has guns and bombs in the suburbs of Dublin city. Indeed these are suburbs where the majority of young Dubliners could not even afford to live if they wanted to (but that's a different issue).

gurramok

mike65 wrote:

I'm not that familiar with "De Big Smoke" but its my impression that nearly all such crimes happen in lower class/marginal areas of the city, its certainly the case with Limerick. One can only wonder what the political and judical response might be if the leafier parts of both were under seige from armed scum bags high on coke.

Mike.

Bang on, it happens daily in various parts. I live in one those 'marginal' areas as described in Dublin.
I too was very surprised that a garda getting shot was not national headlines.

Someone(cant remember who) here on boards said before that it didnt matter than gangland was out of control as long as they were killing each other and at the time i myself pointed out that innocent bystanders were increasingly targeted which has now even resulted in a garda hit!
The only time a shooting hit major headlines was that double hit in Clontarf a few months ago hence it scared the bejazus out of middle class suburbia.

So yes, when the killing migrates from marginal areas to the next areas on the wealth ladder, something will be done by the authorities.

I quote an newspaper article which i conveniently cut out on June 7th just gone(not available online), it said that of 111 gangland murders since 1998 only 14 have resulted in a conviction!
4 in '98
12 in '99
12 in '00
9 in '01
10 in '02
20 in '03
9 in '04
21 in '05
12 in '06 (upto June 7th)
Of 33 gangland murders since start of '05, not a single conviction has been secured.
So are we surprised that shootings are on the increase when there are so many assassins walking the streets?

mike65

On The Last Word with Matt Cooper a retired cop was bemoaning the law as it stands re: right to silence etc. He mentioned how its pretty much impossible to convict, short of catching them in the act. Lets face it whos going to turn states evidence when 'they' know everything about you.

Mike.

LostinBlanch

Headline in the Herald today said the shooter was on coke.

Shocked at the fact that only 11 gangland killings have resulted in convictions.
Not good enough at all. That dying wasp has some sting, nach éa Michéal?

marcsignal

telecaster wrote:

That's not entirely fair.

true, no offence, I was trying to agree with m65 when he suggested it would take shooting in leafy suburbs before it's dealt with.

lostexpectation

mike65 wrote:

On The Last Word with Matt Cooper a retired cop was bemoaning the law as it stands re: right to silence etc. He mentioned how its pretty much impossible to convict, short of catching them in the act. Lets face it whos going to turn states evidence when 'they' know everything about you.

Mike.

ah come one this is the problem with cops, bemoaning the right to silence FFS, I wanna hear them talk about the evidence and weight of proof not right to silence.

what to trials fall on?

Dyr

mike65 wrote:

I'm not that familiar with "De Big Smoke" but its my impression that nearly all such crimes happen in lower class/marginal areas of the city, its certainly the case with Limerick. One can only wonder what the political and judical response might be if the leafier parts of both were under seige from armed scum bags high on coke.

Mike.

The gardai have an enormous double standard when it comes to enforcing laws in different area's. They're going to reap a whirlwind in the coming years due to this and they have their superiors to mostly blame for it.

fly_agaric

marcsignal wrote:

i didnt hear about it until today, isn't it unreal ??

our taoiseach doing a 'bad impression of lady diana' makes the headlines, and meanwhile a minor shoots a cop and it almost goes unnoticed ??

I was thinking the same thing. I would have thought that story would have got much more media attention than it did - even with this Bertie stuff going on.
So we seem to be at the point of "ho-hum - a guard gets shot" as regards violent crime in Dublin now?:eek:

tallus

It got a few columns in tonights herald. page 6 ...
Above the Garda shooting article is an article on how Olivia Tracey and some other 40 something models are leading the charge with dunnes stores fashions.
Sad really, it reminded me of why I never buy tabloids.

mike65

American TV news has a saying - "If it bleeds, it leads" but thats not true here anymore. Its almost as if the national media are deliberatly looking the other way or they could be bored with it.

Mike.

marcsignal

everyone knows the gardai aren't perfect, all the malarky in donegal over the last few years proved that, and im pretty sure it's not confined to isloated country districts. Maybe the ombudsman will be a step in the right direction and its vital one has been set up to keep them in check.
However, under the circumstances, I think a fully enforced mandatory sentence of 15 years for posession of an illegal firearm without exception might also help.