Assault in IFSC/Spencer Dock. What the hell is wrong with this city?

IFSCYP

Hi, I'd like to share some recent incidents that I've experienced in the last months in the IFSC and Spencer Dock with groups of 15/16 yr-old knackers who are harassing people in the street.

What follows is an excerpt of my testimony to the Gardai:

"On Tuesday 25/7/17 at 22.20 I was speaking on the phone while standing on the bridge that crosses the canal over to Spencer Dock (Major Street Lower). A group of around 10 young males sat near me, so I started walking towards Spencer Dock. At that point I noticed another group of around 10-15 young males were walking in my direction, just by the Spencer Dock ground level commercial spaces.

I then took a left down the stairs that are right to the left of the bridge and the former group of young males were suddenly right at my back. One of them (blond/red head. c.1.80m) pushed me while the others laughed. I turned around and asked him what he was doing, to what a couple of the others answered that what was I doing.

I turned around and proceeded to walk towards the Spencer Dock complex, looking backwards while they mocked and threw stones at me. When I arrived to the arch that delimits the Spencer Dock complex, I stopped and looked around to see if the young males were coming. Both groups were together now and walking in my direction. One of them screamed "there he is" and they all started to run towards me.

I turned around and started walking quickly, when another adolescent (black curly hair, sides cut more than the top. Black coat similar to a North Face Trevail Jacket. c.1.75m in height. Slim complexity) ran to me from behind and head-butted me on the left side of my face. I turned around and punched him in the face and started running away inside the Spencer Dock complex, the group of 25-30 young males running behind me.

I tripped and fell down after 10m, where a bunch of them kicked me on the floor. I managed to stand up and ran again towards the end of the complex's main corridor, trying to find an open gate or somewhere to hide. When I reached the end, I realized I had nowhere to go in that direction, so I turned around and ran in the same direction I had come from, hoping I'd be able to get in through any of the gates.

In my run back I passed through the whole group, which was scattered as they had been chasing me from the first arch. Almost every one of them I passed threw a punch or kick at me. When I reached the last gate I didn't have time to open it, so many of them got at me and starting punching and kicking me.

I don't recall how many blows I received, but at some point they all left running and I found myself on the floor bleeding heavily from the nose, with the Spencer Dock night guard next to me. Some residents came out and helped out with cloths and ice until the police came over."

--

Besides this incident, which left me with a herniated disc, and multiple head and face injuries, I have been thrown stones at in at least 2 other occasions, and just today I saw a group of kids throwing stones to a man who was walking towards the IFSC. Since the above mentioned incident happened I obviously try not to get involved with them whatsoever, so I just called 112 and asked them to put me through to the Gardai...

What the hell is going on in this part of the city? and how does the Gardai not do anything about it? I've lived in a few places including the US, Latin America, and Spain, and unfortunately I must say I've never felt so unsafe as I do in Dublin...

What is also pretty sad is that apparently these kid's parents live out of subsidies from the State, which is greatly financed by people like myself who come from abroad to work here and pay (quite a lot of) taxes.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Any advice on what can be done besides letting the Gardai know?

Dots1982

Used to work around there and park my car on Seville place and to be honest there was a lot of youths around but didn’t seem a threat. Maybe things have got worst in the years since.

SEPT 23 1989

It's their area no amount of shiny new buildings changes that fact

wakka12

Wow. Sounds really scary man , sorry that happened to you.

corks finest

IFSCYP wrote: »

Hi, I'd like to share some recent incidents that I've experienced in the last months in the IFSC and Spencer Dock with groups of 15/16 yr-old knackers who are harassing people in the street.

What follows is an excerpt of my testimony to the Gardai:

"On Tuesday 25/7/18 at 22.20 I was speaking on the phone while standing on the bridge that crosses the canal over to Spencer Dock (Major Street Lower). A group of around 10 young males sat near me, so I started walking towards Spencer Dock. At that point I noticed another group of around 10-15 young males were walking in my direction, just by the Spencer Dock ground level commercial spaces.

I then took a left down the stairs that are right to the left of the bridge and the former group of young males were suddenly right at my back. One of them (blond/red head. c.1.80m) pushed me while the others laughed. I turned around and asked him what he was doing, to what a couple of the others answered that what was I doing.

I turned around and proceeded to walk towards the Spencer Dock complex, looking backwards while they mocked and threw stones at me. When I arrived to the arch that delimits the Spencer Dock complex, I stopped and looked around to see if the young males were coming. Both groups were together now and walking in my direction. One of them screamed "there he is" and they all started to run towards me.

I turned around and started walking quickly, when another adolescent (black curly hair, sides cut more than the top. Black coat similar to a North Face Trevail Jacket. c.1.75m in height. Slim complexity) ran to me from behind and head-butted me on the left side of my face. I turned around and punched him in the face and started running away inside the Spencer Dock complex, the group of 25-30 young males running behind me.

I tripped and fell down after 10m, where a bunch of them kicked me on the floor. I managed to stand up and ran again towards the end of the complex's main corridor, trying to find an open gate or somewhere to hide. When I reached the end, I realized I had nowhere to go in that direction, so I turned around and ran in the same direction I had come from, hoping I'd be able to get in through any of the gates.

In my run back I passed through the whole group, which was scattered as they had been chasing me from the first arch. Almost every one of them I passed threw a punch or kick at me. When I reached the last gate I didn't have time to open it, so many of them got at me and starting punching and kicking me.

I don't recall how many blows I received, but at some point they all left running and I found myself on the floor bleeding heavily from the nose, with the Spencer Dock night guard next to me. Some residents came out and helped out with cloths and ice until the police came over."

--

Besides this incident, which left me with a herniated disc, and multiple head and face injuries, I have been thrown stones at in at least 2 other occasions, and just today I saw a group of kids throwing stones to a man who was walking towards the IFSC. Since the above mentioned incident happened I obviously try not to get involved with them whatsoever, so I just called 112 and asked them to put me through to the Gardai...

What the hell is going on in this part of the city? and how does the Gardai not do anything about it? I've lived in a few places including the US, Latin America, and Spain, and unfortunately I must say I've never felt so unsafe as I do in Dublin...

What is also pretty sad is that apparently these kid's parents live out of subsidies from the State, which is greatly financed by people like myself who come from abroad to work here and pay (quite a lot of) taxes.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Any advice on what can be done besides letting the Gardai know?

Disgusting thing to happen,sorry genuinely for your troubles bud,sad fact of modern Ireland I'm afraid,goes on in most urban areas,ref parents of these thugs, losers,but be sure to know vast majority of Irish people are warm, and normal,and would obviously condemn this carry on,,, spotted u were foreign no doubt, probably trying to rob u of your phone etc

Owryan

Seems totally legit, also totally understandable that after a beating like that you would join boards to tell your tale.

And it's still early on a Saturday night.

riffmongous

IFSCYP wrote: »

Hi, I'd like to share some recent incidents that I've experienced in the last months in the IFSC and Spencer Dock with groups of 15/16 yr-old knackers who are harassing people in the street.

What follows is an excerpt of my testimony to the Gardai:

"On Tuesday 25/7/18 at 22.20 I was speaking on the phone while standing on the bridge that crosses the canal over to Spencer Dock (Major Street Lower). A group of around 10 young males sat near me, so I started walking towards Spencer Dock. At that point I noticed another group of around 10-15 young males were walking in my direction, just by the Spencer Dock ground level commercial spaces.

Eh?

mojesius

Sorry that happened to you, sounds awful.

I lived in the city centre (D1 further down quays) for years and work in grand canal dock but wouldn't walk around IFSC at night alone (female). Spencer dock/IFSC is a bit of a ghost town off peak and surrounding areas have always had a bad reputation with regards to feral kids/anti social behaviour, even before IFSC was really developed.

Unfortunately, gardai are under-resourced to maintain a strong presence needed to stop this crap. Would you consider moving? Sounds drastic I know, but there are safer areas of the city further down the quays, on dart line or across the Liffey. It's not reflective of the whole city.

dhaughton99

Seems to be a very rough lot at the back of the IFSC. The place looks like a hole. They built them new houses a few years ago and last time I passed through it, it looked like west Belfast in the 80’s. I noticed a lovely chrome fixed gear bike outside the Jennie Johnson, wrapped around a parking bay. Upside down and crossbar bent. Wrecked.

delboythedub

"Once Again lawless ireland"

Owryan

riffmongous wrote: »

Eh?

Clearly they are a time lord, just unlucky for them they landed in Dublin in the future.

I mean the story is so believable that you have to accept they traveled into the future, were attacked and returned to the present day so they could tell us about it.

doolox

...waiting for this to happen. The unfortunate thing about IFSC and Spencer Dock is that the new Hi tech and highly paid population are trying to settle in a part of the city that was mostly populated by semi skilled dockers and labourers and a population of people renting low cost housing units often with no proper jobs and no control over their teenage male children. These used to be casual dockers and labourers, jobs now long gone since containerisation and mechanised warehousing has got rid of a lot of low skilled jobs in this area in the 1960's and 70's. We are still living with this economic fallout today.

The Gardai are mostly non Dublin members who travel around in cars most of the time and are kept busy with drug lords, gun toting feuders and other highly serious crime. Also cops are needed to keep the roads in operation. They are the only thing keeping a lid on the behaviour of drivers on our roads. This leaves the quieter streets of Irelands inner cities as dangerous places to go especially after 7-8pm when most decent people are finished work and are at home having their tea. 10pm (22.00) is when most people will either be in the pubs drinking or getting ready for bed. The danger is when there is nobody else out on the street except you and the sub-human scumbags who commit violent crime at the drop of a hat. It only takes one hot headed ring leader to start a fight and the other idiots will follow their lead.

You can bet your sweet life if you were in a crowd, at a different time of day surrounded by your own kind, hard working intelligent busy people, these creatures would not attempt anything. What is needed is a Garda branch, recruited from among the inner city people and on foot like the criminals they should be protecting ordinary people from. The justice officials will never admit anything is wrong and the judges are sick of having to deal with assault cases where the people have often got 60,70 or even 80 previous convictions for theft, shop lifting, vandalism, assault, GBH etc. Until someone is killed these creatures are often out on bail and do not get imprisoned until someone is seriously injured or killed.

Our Garda force are mostly rural people, transplanted to Dublin which is an alien place to them. The locals hate them and they hate and fear the locals. Our judges are mostly from the upper middle class areas of the city well away from the North Inner City and do not realise how vicious these adolescents are. Many judges subscribe to a creed of blaming social poverty and deprivation for what is often pure simple evil in need of correction and control. There is a serious lack of good male role models and working fathers or local community leaders and often the women are left to their own devices with almost adult male children whom they cannot discipline or control.

Until you recruit and use Gardai from the inner city and hire judges from the inner city this problem will not be solved. I hope there exists people of sufficiently high calibre in the inner city to do this job but I fear that prejudice and discrimination might prevent this happening. Outsiders have tried for decades without success.The government does not want to know. Dublin has always been a place apart from the rest of Ireland being historically the seat of English power with a small detached upper class and a small but visible and troublesome undereducated underclass. Hence why I would see the need for judges and Gardai from the inner city itself, to control and police their own kind of people.

doolox

....the poor fecker is probably so dented and dazed that little clerical error will happen. I hope he didn't put a July date on the original statement.

dubrov

doolox wrote: »

....the poor fecker is probably so dented and dazed that little clerical error will happen. I hope he didn't put a July date on the original statement.

Strange as the rest of the prose is perfect. So perfect in fact, you'd think it was written by an Irish man.

Dots1982

Was in Amsterdam there recently, was having coffee outside a cafe. A lad moved one of the cafe seat and table over the road to be beside the canal and in sunlight. He then took out his phone and put it with his earphones on the table. He then walked back across the road and into the cafe to order. He obviously felt there was no threat of it being nicked.

I thought to myself its surprising you can feel that safe in a European capital city and it’s a pity there’s no where in Dublin you could do that.

spurious

Try having 5 or 6 of them in a class of normal kids. Nothing can be done about them.
Such is the joy of teaching in many schools today and a large part of why I am a retired teacher.

dhaughton99

Dots1982 wrote: »

Was in Amsterdam there recently, was having coffee outside a cafe. A lad moved one of the cafe seat and table over the road to be beside the canal and in sunlight. He then took out his phone and put it with his earphones on the table. He then walked back across the road and into the cafe to order. He obviously felt there was no threat of it being nicked.

I thought to myself its surprising you can feel that safe in a European capital city and it’s a pity there’s no where in Dublin you could do that.

I parked my bike down James’s st today for an hour and my gloves, scarf and dog lead was knicked from a bag in the basket.

riffmongous

doolox wrote: »

....the poor fecker is probably so dented and dazed that little clerical error will happen. I hope he didn't put a July date on the original statement.

It wasn't a Tuesday, it's got to be July 2017 which is a good while ago at this stage

dubrov

dhaughton99 wrote: »

I parked my bike down James’s st today for an hour and my gloves, scarf and dog lead was knicked from a bag in the basket.

In Amsterdam, you'd still have your gloves, scarf and dog lead but no bike.

Assetbacked

Dublin city centre is a kip; dirty and ugly. Im living in the north inner city and it’s particularly bad here. The police are such a soft touch where they won’t even physically hassle the inner city rodents for fear of getting assault and harassment claims thrown their way. It’s pathetic that the little knackers have no fear of the police. And a bike left in the city centre is guaranteed to be nicked or vandalised. North inner city is devoid of anything worth showing outsiders or nice to live in if you are in anyway a decent human being.

SteM

Dots1982 wrote: »

Was in Amsterdam there recently, was having coffee outside a cafe. A lad moved one of the cafe seat and table over the road to be beside the canal and in sunlight. He then took out his phone and put it with his earphones on the table. He then walked back across the road and into the cafe to order. He obviously felt there was no threat of it being nicked.

I thought to myself its surprising you can feel that safe in a European capital city and it’s a pity there’s no where in Dublin you could do that.

Just because he happened to get away with it doesn't mean there was no threat of it getting nicked, it just means he got lucky.

doolox

..with workers being assaulted and threatened and the place constantly vandalised and nothing that can be done about it. It seems that nothing can be done until the feral kids turn 18 and then the cops and prison officers put on riot gear and wade in.....

No control at all until the magic legal age of 18 and then all hell breaks loose.

By then it is too late to do anything about the person who has been let run wild until the child becomes an adult and loses the protection accorded to children. Then they can be beaten to within an inch of their lives or locked up for 23 hours each day if they don't behave. Many have no education or life skills, lacking the parents or authority figures who should have been doing this work for their 1st 18 yrs of life.

dubrov

doolox wrote: »

..with workers being assaulted and threatened and the place constantly vandalised and nothing that can be done about it. It seems that nothing can be done until the feral kids turn 18 and then the cops and prison officers put on riot gear and wade in.....

No control at all until the magic legal age of 18 and then all hell breaks loose.

By then it is too late to do anything about the person who has been let run wild until the child becomes an adult and loses the protection accorded to children. Then they can be beaten to within an inch of their lives or locked up for 23 hours each day if they don't behave. Many have no education or life skills, lacking the parents or authority figures who should have been doing this work for their 1st 18 yrs of life.

When was the last time you were down the IFSC?

wakka12

Dots1982 wrote: »

Was in Amsterdam there recently, was having coffee outside a cafe. A lad moved one of the cafe seat and table over the road to be beside the canal and in sunlight. He then took out his phone and put it with his earphones on the table. He then walked back across the road and into the cafe to order. He obviously felt there was no threat of it being nicked.

I thought to myself its surprising you can feel that safe in a European capital city and it’s a pity there’s no where in Dublin you could do that.

Thats just stupid of him though.Theres bad people in every city, I wouldn't leave my phone out in a cafe in amsterdam or in any other city for that matter and its nothing to do with me being from dublin the big bad city

Alf Veedersane

I was in a city abroad once and nothing happened to me so it must be a safe haven.

I lived down in East Wall for a few years. Used to walk through Sheriff St to and from Connolly station. Nothing ever happened me in the 4 years I spent doing that. But that's not to say I would have walked down there at night. But I know where I wouldn't walk down my home town down the country either.

It's not because we don't have enough guards from inner city Dublin. We just dont have enough guards full stop.

But please spare me this nonsense of X city doesn't have such problems because "I was there for a week and it was great".

listermint

The op has ninja edited the dates and times .


This all sounds suspect to say the least.

Like one of those subsidies threads in after hours

Dots1982

Or it might be something to do with Amsterdam being the 6 th safest city in the the world and Dublin having too many junkies and too many people with no fear of the police.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

listermint wrote: »

The op has ninja edited the dates and times .


This all sounds suspect to say the least.

Like one of those subsidies threads in after hours

Because nobody ever made a mistake ever!

Canis Lupus

Thank you for including their height in the metric system. It really brought the story to life for me.

no.8

Canis Lupus wrote:

Thank you for including their height in the metric system. It really brought the story to life for me.

?????
Have you not yet learned to use modern measurement units?

That's an awful story. It's completely unacceptable for this to be able to happen in such a part of the capital city. These scumbags need to be drafted or tossed into Dublin bay

IngazZagni

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

I was in a city abroad once and nothing happened to me so it must be a safe haven.

I lived down in East Wall for a few years. Used to walk through Sheriff St to and from Connolly station. Nothing ever happened me in the 4 years I spent doing that. But that's not to say I would have walked down there at night. But I know where I wouldn't walk down my home town down the country either.

It's not because we don't have enough guards from inner city Dublin. We just dont have enough guards full stop.

But please spare me this nonsense of X city doesn't have such problems because "I was there for a week and it was great".

I walked through sheriff street going between Connolly and the convention centre area last week during the day and there was a gang of male youths loitering and across the road a guy shouted at me if I wanted any weed. A fairly intimidating street and I won't be taking that shortcut again.

I agree with your other point though. I've lived in other European Cities and Dublin is pretty safe overall compared to others but I would say that other cities perhaps do a better job of policing the city centre/touristic areas.