Gardaí probe fifth Limerick shooting in a week

LIMERICK gardaí were last night investigating the fifth shooting incident in the city in a week.

It is believed to be the highest ever number of reported shootings in any one week in Limerick.

Since last Sunday three men have been wounded in separated shootings. Houses have been blasted in two other incidents. None of the incidents was feud related.

Some of the shooting arose from what gardaí describe as relatively minor rows shortly before. Gardaí now estimate nearly one in three shooting incidents in the country this year have occurred in Limerick city.

In the latest incident a house in O’Malley Park was hit by a blast from a shotgun at around 2am yesterday. Nobody was hurt. The scene was cordoned off for forensic examination by Roxboro gardaí.

Three men hit by gunfire during the week escaped with minor injuries.

Aaron O’Brien from Delmege Park, Moyross, was hit by a single bullet in the abdomen as he walked home in the early hours of Sunday morning last week.

He was taken to the Mid Western Regional Hospital where he recovered after surgery.

Mr O’Brien, aged 22, had been at a house party in Delmege Park where according to locals there was an incident.

He was in the company of another man when a lone gunman fired at him.

Gardaí said the bullet was discharged from a handgun or a low calibre rifle.

On Wednesday night David Heighton, 26, received a serious head wound when he was shot when walking near his home at St Mary’s Park.

Doctors are still treating him for pellet wounds to one eye. Earlier that evening a gunman fired into a house in the same neighbourhood.

A man was also shot and wounded in St Mary’s Park the following night in an unrelated incident.

The man told gardaí that after being shot in the back he took refuge in bushes as a gunman searched to finish him off.

The man then refused to be taken by ambulance to a local hospital. He had what were described as relatively minor pellet wounds.