Derry police appeal for community 'engagement' to bring paramilitaries before the courts

Police have asked the Derry public to 'engage' with them in order to bring paramilitaries, who have carried out eight shootings this year, before the courts.

Since January 1, eight males have sustained serious injuries as a result of being shot in paramilitary-style attacks in the city.

However, no-one has been charged at this stage in connection with the offences.

Chief Superintendent Darrin Jones, the local police commander said investigations into the shootings are active.

“Those responsible for these violent gun attacks on members of the Derry community have nothing to offer and only want to exert fear and control over the community for their own selfish gains and think nothing of using their guns against people in the communities where they live," he said.

“The brutal injuries they inflict on people are a stark violation of people’s basic human rights. 

“They do not care about the long-term physical and emotional damage they are inflicting on their victims and their families.

“We are actively investigating these incidents to identify those involved and bring them before the courts.  

“Police have conducted a number of searches and, while no persons have been charged, five men have been arrested and questioned in connection with a number of these violent incidents.”

Chief Superintendent Jones urged people with any information about the attacks to come forward.

He added: “There are obvious difficulties in getting victims and witnesses of such attacks to come forward due to fear but Police are far from powerless when it comes to dealing with these people who are exploiting their own communities.

“We are targeting the groups and individuals we suspect are responsible for the attacks and tackling their wider criminality, be that drug dealing, or any other illegal activity.

“My message is simple: Policing works for communities, particularly for those communities that engage and work with us.”

TIMELINE OF SHOOTINGS

January 6: The first paramilitary style attack took place when a man in his 30s was targeted in what police described as a ‘barbaric’ shooting. It took place around 7.30pm in the Southway area of Derry.

January 8: Just two days later, a man was shot outside a residential property in Creggan Heights before 7.45pm, sustaining what police said may be ‘life-changing’ injuries.

February 6:  Two men were hospitalised after being shot in the legs in Rinmore Drive, close to Creggan shops.  Again, it took place early in the evening and was described as ‘reckless and brutal’ by the PSNI. 

February 27: A teenager was shot in an alleyway in the Curryneirin area.

April 13: A man in his 20s was shot in the Meenan Drive area in a paramilitary-style assault.

April 15: Men forced their way into a property in the Whitethorn Drive area of the city where a man was shot a number of times in his legs.

May 17: The most recent involved a man being bundled into a car on the Letterkenny Road and driven to Claudy where he was shot.  The injured man made it to a nearby house where he raised the alarm and was transported to hospital.

‘INTIMIDATION’

Paramilitary groups in the city often attempt to justify the shooting of individuals who they claim are drug dealers.

However, graffiti appeared in Creggan, Ballymagroarty and the Bogside earlier this year with members of the New IRA and INLA accusing one another of protecting drug dealers.

According to the National Crime Agency (NCA), serious and organised crime gangs involved in the sale and supply of drugs have adapted during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the yearly period to March 2021, NI has experienced its highest number of drug offences on record.

The number of drug offences increased by 163 in the past twelve months to 8,165 offences.

Derry City and Strabane saw the biggest increase in drug seizure incidents, up from 670 in 2019/20 to 812 in 2020/21.

Drug related arrests at a local level also increased from 430 to 473 – the biggest jump in the country, with other policing areas experiencing a decrease in arrests.

Michael Mulqueen, Professor of Policing and National Security at the University of Central Lancashire, has focused on policing in Ireland.

The Derry News asked him whether it is ‘normal’ in other parts of Ireland or the UK for eight people to be shot and nobody brought before the courts.

He says community intelligence in a small city such as Derry can be contingent upon how the police is perceived within local communities.

Professor Mulqueen added: “But any shootings – much less those flowing from the menacing world of paramilitarism allied to serious and organised crime – create an additional challenge.

“Unscrupulous and well-organised paramilitary crime gangs will, routinely, engage in despicable acts of witness intimidation.

“So, whereas police should always be trying to do more to resolve serious crime, there are, frustratingly, complicating factors.”

COLLATERAL DAMAGE 

Overall recorded crime decreased in all of the PSNI’s 11 policing districts over the last 12 months.

Derry has experienced the smallest annual percentage drop in crime at -1.7 per cent.

By way of comparison, Belfast City experienced a -17.1 per cent drop and across Northern Ireland, as a whole, recorded crime decreased by -11.4 per cent.

Local policing commanders will offer reasons for the variance.

But, Professor Mulqueen believes that in the case of Derry, data seems to ‘expose the myth' that republicans violently opposed to the peace process suppress crime in communities.

He said: “Resorting to knee-capping and other thuggish ways may be running counter to the intended effect: could it be that it is persuading people in Derry to report crime to the PSNI with greater frequency?

“Alternatively, one can read the data as PSNI and its partners having experienced a year in which crime has proved harder to contain than in other districts.

“This may be, not least, due to the efforts of a menacing ‘dissident’ presence.  Indeed, however it is cut, those opposed to the peace are living up to the refrain of their critics: ‘they offer nothing’.”

The policing expert cited February’s double shooting at Rinmore Drive, Creggan, as an example in this regard.

A PSNI investigating officer concluded that two men were shot in ‘savage attacks’ in a residential area at a time when people would have been out and about.

“The trauma inflicted upon victims and the community was, no doubt, designed to inflict collateral damage in the form of weakening the will of vulnerable people to seek local PSNI support,” Professor Mulqueen concluded.

Police have appealed for anyone with information about any criminality to contact police on 101, or submit a report online using our non-emergency reporting form via http://www.psni.police.uk/makeareport/

You can also contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at http://crimestoppers-uk.org/