Creggan community groups: 'Church and political leaders must demand investigation into PSNI actions'

Creggan Neighbourhood Partnership (CNP) and Creggan Enterprises (CE) are calling on the established local community forum/structures, church leaders and all local elected representatives to demand an independent investigation into the actions of the PSNI in the Ballymagowan area of Creggan yesterday.

They say Creggan is being treated as a place apart where 'highly aggressive' policing tactics are serving to 'alienate' the community.

It comes after the PSNI carried out a search and arrest operation in Creggan yesterday morning named Operation Ledging - 'looking specifically at the New IRA’s bomb making activities as well as the group’s storage of explosive devices and equipment'.

This morning a court was told that around 20 police Land Rovers and many more officers arrived in the Ballymagowan area of Creggan just after 6am on March 18.

A solicitor questioned the timing of the incident, directly after St. Patrick's Day, and what he described as a 'heavy handed approach'. 

That view was shared by Foyle MLA Karen Mullan who said the PSNI had 'questions to answer', particularly regarding 'heavy handed tactics on women'.

A Creggan mother (pictured above) was handcuffed and pinned to the ground by police 'raiding' a neighbour’s home.

The woman concerned said she has been left with bruising to her arms and stomach. 

She explained that the incident began when her daughter, who was in distress, was pushed against a jeep.

Following the operation, one man was taken to Musgrave Serious Crime Suite for questioning and two other men were charged with assaulting police officers.

Now, a spokesperson for CNP and CE has criticised the police operation, saying: "It has become clear that the PSNI are treating Creggan as a place apart – a testing ground for highly aggressive, unnecessary and inappropriate policing tactics which only serve to alienate this community even further.

"Many who witnessed the outworking of this 12-hour operation, carried out in Creggan yesterday, have commented that police action was heavy-handed and disproportionate.

"Certainly mobile phone footage of some of these incidents, circulating on social media, supports these claims. Police engagement with Creggan residents saw two local men and a number of young people injured and a woman thrown to the ground and knelt on by several officers.

"A heavily armed police presence remained in the area throughout the day into the evening and incited large crowds of young people, building tensions in the community. A small number of local youth workers and community workers were present throughout the day - observing the activity and helping to calm the situation."

He added: "CNP and CE are growing increasingly concerned at the nature of profiling which this community and its residents are facing. The politics of demonisation, criminalisation and felon-setting are failed policies of the past and are counterproductive to the notion of peacebuilding and conflict transformation.

"The end result of these tactics is the creation of a sub-class of people, an entire community profiled and its public image/reputation blackened. A supposedly ‘end-justifies-the-means’ approach to policing this community is alienating a new generation and disconnecting them completely from all systems of governance.

"This situation will not improve by itself – we need a comprehensive review of policing activity in this community, and we call for senior representatives of civic society and the community, to speak out and demand independent scrutiny."