Four arrested after heavily armed gang attacks man
Four men were in custody last night as gardaí tried to establish a motive for the attack.
The victim was treated in hospital but released yesterday afternoon.
The alarm was raised at about 5am when neighbours on Mary Street — a lane linking George’s Quay to Red Abbey Street and Douglas Street — reported the sound of breaking glass.
Uniformed gardaí and armed detective units rushed to the scene and found the raid was in progress.
They entered a terraced house that is subdivided into three flats and heard the gang escaping out the rear of the building.
The gardaí pursued and found one man crouching in a yard behind the house.
They recovered a shotgun, knives and a baseball bat nearby. The other three men fled over garden walls and rooftops and gardaí sealed off the block surrounding the house.
They found the men hiding inside another premises on the same street about an hour later.
All four men — two in their mid-20s and two in their early 30s — were arrested under section 30 of the Offences against the State Act, which allows gardaí detain them for up to 24 hours.
Two of the men are from Cork and two of the men are from Co Wexford. They are all known to gardaí. Two were detained at Mayfield Garda Station and two at the Bridewell Garda Station.
Their periods of detention were likely to be extended in the early hours of this morning. The gang entered two of the flats in the complex but it was unclear last night if anything had been taken.
Superintendent Mick Finn, who is leading the investigation, said gardaí were interviewing the occupants of the flats yesterday in a bid to establish a motive.
“We would appeal to anyone who saw four men acting suspiciously in the Mary Street area at 5am yesterday to contact us,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Co Kerry, a man in his 20s was in a stable condition in hospital in Tralee last night after he was stabbed in the early hours of the morning.
The man’s friend was also injured but he was released from hospital. The incident happened at Balloonagh estate in Tralee between 3am and 4am when the men were attacked by a group of up to four men.
Gardaí are waiting for the man’s condition to improve before interviewing him.
