Gardaí shot in the North Inner City

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Tuesday September 25, 2007 14:14

by indyjourno

Today at 9.10 am a Gardaí on traffic duty on the Ossory Road in the North Inner City was shot by a passenger in a stolen car. The Garda, who was shot in the stomach, is in a stable condition in the Mater hospital. The Garda was a Traffic Corps motorcycle officer.

The stolen car, a silver Nissan Almera, that was used in the incident has since been found abandoned. According to the Irish Times the car was stolen last May and was spotted by the owner this morning on the North Strand who noticed that the male occupants of the car were wearing hi vis yellow jackets. The owner of the vehicle contacted the police and when the Garda stopped the car it is believed that a passenger of the car got out and shot the officer in the stomach with a sawn off shotgun. The Minister for Justice has offered his "thoughts and prayers" to the Garda in an interview to one of the broadsheet papers and has stated that the Gardaí "will have the full support of the community" in bringing the perpetrators to justice.

While this statment from the Justice Minister is undoubtedly true many activists will be fearful of what this shooting will mean to activists and communities such as Rossport who are currently suffering from Garda oppression. The publics sympathy will certainly be with the Garda in question and so it should be. Public representatives will fall over themselves to praise the Gardaí and preach to the public about how dangerous it is for the Gardaí to protect us, the community at large. Certainly many Gardaí do risk serious injury going about there job, however a fear now would be that the government may introduce more oppresive legislation in the context of protecting us (and the Gardaí) from gangland crime. Public opinion will be behind the Gardaí in this case and I would expect that public support of the Gardaí would rise over this shooting. In this scenario activists should expect an increase in harrasment from Gardaí who will feel buoyed by an increase in public support, I would expect that the Gardaí in Mayo will also increase the brutality of there "crowd control".

While people should have sympathy with the shot Garda in this case we should also be wary of people sacrificing liberty for the appearance of safety. As Benjamin Franklin put it "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"

Further links:
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/0925/bre...5.htm
http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0925/dublin.html