‘That bullet could as easily have hit him in the head’

THE mother of the five-year-old Limerick boy who was shot on Sunday night, yesterday gave a chilling account of the brutal attack.

Olivia Crawford, 31, who is pregnant with her fourth child, said she did not realise her son Jordan had been shot until he collapsed in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor of their home in Southill.

Olivia was speaking at the Sunshine children’s ward of the Mid-Western Regional Hospital where Jordan is recovering.

A bullet from a high-power machine gun went clean through Jordan’s thigh and gardaí said there would have been multiple fatalities if the gun had not jammed.

Olivia said Jordan realises what happened to him.

She said: “He knows that he got shot in the leg. I didn’t have to explain it; he knew it himself.

“I went into shock when I saw him. I went in the ambulance with him and stayed up all night. He said ‘bold men shot me’.”

Olivia said: “I was getting ready to go from my parents’ home in O’Malley Park to my sisters’ house with my three children. A few of the family went out to the front after hearing glass break.

“Then I heard a shot. Jordan ran in and I was frantically looking for my other son, Dylan [aged nine] who ran into a neighbour’s house.

“None of us realised Jordan got shot until a minute or two after he ran back into the house. He was crying, but we thought that was because he was frightened by the bang.

“Then I looked and he was on the kitchen floor and the blood was pouring out of his leg. He was screaming. It all happened so fast, it’s a shock to us all, for this to happen to a five-year-old.

“Jordan is fine now. He was lucky it went right through his thigh. That bullet could as easily have hit him in the head. He was in theatre this morning to have the wound cleaned.”

She said she does not know if she will return to the home in Southill.

Olivia said: “It is unbelievable that your children are not safe outside your own door.”

She did not know why the family home had been targeted two times by gunmen over recent days. More than 17 bullets riddled the house on Thursday night last narrowly missing two pregnant women who were watching TV in the front sitting room.

Olivia said: “I don’t know why they are doing this. It’s just something that is going on. I just don’t know.

“What did this child do to anyone to go through all of this? Terrible. He said last night he won’t be able to play football or go out playing because of the injury to his leg. For a five-year-old to say that, it is devastating,” she asked.

Jordan’s uncle, Paul Crawford, said he was the intended target.

Gardaí believed the Crawford home in O’Malley has been targeted in a number of recent gun attacks by the Keane-Collopy gang in St Mary’s Park because a person known to the Crawfords is linked to the rival McCarthy-Dundon gang.

Paul Crawford said it was the third attempt gunmen have made on his life since last Thursday.

He said: “There is a hit on my head.”

Mr Crawford, 32, spoke in the sitting room of his home in Southill and pointed the numerous bullet pock marks on the walls.

A framed family photo standing on the window sill also has a bullet hole — a legacy of another attack last Thursday night at around 8.15pm.

He said: “Last Thursday night they fired 17 shots in through the sitting room window and narrowly missed a number of women.”

He said the following night, while walking in the Southill area, a car drove up and a gunman pointed a gun at him, but it jammed.

He said Sunday night’s attack in which his nephew was shot was planned.

He said: “They smashed a window in my car to draw me out of the house. It happened around 7.30pm. A few of us went out to see what had happened. A fellow came across the road from the other side of the street and shot at us.”

He said there were four involved in Sunday night’s gun attack.

Mr Crawford said: “He had a mask on his face. They broke the window of the car to get me to run out. There is a hit on my head.”