Six murders in one garda district ‘unprecedented’

GARDA chiefs are deeply concerned at the spate of gun crime which has seen five people killed in just one garda division.

In addition to the gun murders, Coolock in north Dublin has also had a fatal stabbing, bringing to six the total number of murders this year, including the murder 22-year-old James Purdue yesterday. Gardaí say there is no connection between the murders.

“It’s being taken very seriously. It’s of huge concern to all of us, including the commissioner,” said one senior detective.

“It’s unprecedented to have five fatal shootings and six murders in total in one division.”

The garda chief who is leading the six murder investigations, including yesterday’s shooting, shared the concerns.

“It’s a worrying trend for ourselves, the Garda Síochána, but also the community, a very vibrant community in the Coolock area, and it’s very disturbing we have so many murders in the area,” said Supt Noel McLoughlin.

“We’re working very hard to solve them all. We’ve had six since February, one fatal stabbing and five fatal shootings.”

Supt McLoughlin said they were all separate investigations.

“At this stage we feel that none of the murders are connected,” he said.

Of the five gun murders, three could be considered to be gangland-related, or linked to the activities of organised crime.

These include yesterday’s murder, along with Gerard Goulding, an inner-city heroin addict who appears to have been killed by rival criminals from Dublin’s north inner city last April, and Paddy Harte, a suspected money launderer and associate to major criminals shot last month.

The indiscriminate homicide of Donna Cleary last March at a house party was the senseless act of a criminal who had been refused entry into a house party.

The death of Keith Fitzsimons earlier this month appears to have resulted from a brawl outside a pub involving the victim and two friends with another group of men. Fitzsimons was later shot dead and his two friends injured. Gardaí suspect the victim’s friends were the intended victims.

“What you have are young thugs with access to modern firearms, but not able to use them, so they could kill anyone,” said one garda source.

Chief Supt Peter Maguire, who heads the Dublin northern division which includes Coolock, said last month that these gunmen were simply criminals with guns, rather than “big-time criminals or big-time gangsters”.

It’s the combination of the willingness of street criminals to use firearms for minor disputes and the access they now have to weapons that is resulting in such gun violence.

“The availability of weapons is the major problem,” said a garda source.

“They are all coming in in drug shipments from Eastern Europe, often through Holland.

“There’s a huge amount available and they are top-of-the-range firearms, pistols and revolvers.”

Justice Minister Michael McDowell and the Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy have set up a number of initiatives to combat organised crime and armed criminals.

Operational Anvil, which has a budget of e11 million and has gone nationwide, was established in May 2005. As part of this, 425 firearms have been seized and 2,200 arrests have been made for serious crimes, including 43 arrests in connection with murders in Dublin.

In addition, the Organised Crime Unit within the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation has been boosted with 55 gardaí to specifically target armed criminals.

But the detection rate for homicides remains low. Figures reported in the Irish Examiner last week showed that only half of gun murders in the past six years have been detected, or solved, by gardaí. Furthermore, only one-in-six gun murders resulted in an actual conviction in the courts.

There have been no breakthroughs yet in the previous five murders in Coolock.

But Supt McLoughlin said progress is being made.

“We’re working with national units in all these investigations and we’re making progress in every one of them.”