13 year old arrested in the East Wall shooting (1 Viewer)

[nlgbbbblth]

i'd say theres a few more levels of blame to be looked at before pinning it all on the guards.

I'm no guard cheerleader but I wouldn't blame them.

If a 13 year old kid shoots someone then it's the 13 year old kid's fault. No one else's.

I don't agree with juvenile anonymity. 'Cannot be named for legal reasons' is a load of shite.

 

[Milker]

'it could be that kids are just runnung around D3 with guns but I'd be very surprised if it didn't come through some gangland drugs connection. You could go about solving or lessening that problem by:

legalising dope and pills
making smack available to registered addicts through doctors / chemist'

that deals w some of the gun presence alright, and i'm all for the effects of personal responsibility that should come w decriminalisation of drugs, but essentially 'society' does not value 'these people' and, maybe as a consequence, they don't value society....still the urge to beat the fear of a godless god via vigilantes w hurlies into the unloveable pricks who shot Aidan Kane or the bastards that terrify Jane is tremendously vital.


fuckers

 

[GO]

I tell you the little fucks are everywhere.I got abused by 2 little bastards on Friday evening.I mean 2 little cunts.They've some balls on them but sure they just don't have the sense to even be worried about getting bursted by a grown man.So what can you do?Just take it and keep walking.

 

[jane]

that deals w some of the gun presence alright, and i'm all for the effects of personal responsibility that should come w decriminalisation of drugs, but essentially 'society' does not value 'these people' and, maybe as a consequence, they don't value society....still the urge to beat the fear of a godless god via vigilantes w hurlies into the unloveable pricks who shot Aidan Kane or the bastards that terrify Jane is tremendously vital.


fuckers

What Milker said.

The urges to use rough justice, advocate tougher policing, or give them greater powers of arrest are strong, but all are counterproductive. But oh, so strong.

The people have no respect for each other, which means that the kids and the pigs, all of whom are also people (except the pigs, who are pigs dressed in people clothes), also don't have any respect. None for us, none for themselves, and none for each other.

Since external government initiatives make life feel like a big school pizza party, and since we're hardly going to get the entire city to a session of group therapy, it's a tough ass fucking problem. The majority of the people in the most affected communities also feel terrorised or at least compromised, and I do think that while they might not know how to solve the problem, they can define their needs, and those needs won't always match (like how the need to throw bottles at people does not match other people's need not to have bottles thrown at them).

The ideal result is the collective creation of good will where everyone feels it is in their interest not to upset that. But that's a tall fucking order in a city where you have a fucking pig come to your house and tell you if you don't like being assaulted in the middle of the afternoon, you should go back to where you came from because that's just how things are here. THAT made me feel safe. And I think the fact that they didn't give a shite made me feel more nervous than anything.

I don't blame the gardai for the crimes that happen, since people have the choice not to shoot someone, but I do actually blame the gardai for not trying to do something when they see it, even if it's a scary situation. Because that's the job. And if thugs know that they can scare the gardai away, they win. I would feel a lot of sympathy for anyone -- including even the most useless of gards -- who got hurt, but it's still their JOB.

Anyway, I'm an aul biddy. It's official.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I'm no guard cheerleader but I wouldn't blame them.

If a 13 year old kid shoots someone then it's the 13 year old kid's fault. No one else's.

I don't agree with juvenile anonymity. 'Cannot be named for legal reasons' is a load of shite.

i dunno, 13 is still a bit young. what are his parents at, and neighbours and teachers, politicians, guards etc? 13 is a bit too young to write someone off altogether. theres a wider responsibility for the fact that its gotten to this stage in the first place. dunno how you'd fix it though. another thing i thought of before was kinda related - to do with the french arab population in france, im not too sure of my facts here, yikes, but i think a load of them came to france from algeria where the french had fucked things up a bit but in france they were all put living in shitty housing projects with no social facilities and the inevitable problems of anti-social behaviour followed. the arab population probably did have genuine grievances with the french that were never addressed but bad behaviour quickly erodes any good will. i spent a year in such an area in france when i was a student and i did feel uncomfortable around arabs. they (a visable minority of course, but the ones who become known to you) were threatening and aggressive and abusive etc, sold drugs, burned cars, pissed off the non-arab white people who didnt personally have any part in the original slight against the less well off arabs but now have a new set of prejudices of their own against the arabs and the original issues all got forgotten due to all the new problems. i forget what my point was now, sorry.

 

[Goff]

the guards seem to be a target more than anything else to these little fuckers these days. i often felt sorry for them when i saw a young baby-faced guard or two on the beat around the city centre on a saturday night. what can a guard do to a bunch of little bastards acting like pricks? i'd say theres a few more levels of blame to be looked at before pinning it all on the guards. its a bit late by the time theyre involved.

I think you're missing the whole protect and to serve bit. Guardians of the peace and all that.

They're a shower of lazy cunts who don't want to get involved in what are only minor crimes to them (no pun intended). Anyone who has had to put up with little thugs who are untouchable only because you're the one who would be done if you sorted it yourself knows this. Minor crimes have a tendency to lead to things like someone being shot by a 13 year old. It's not as if no one knew this type of thing would happen.

What a Guard can do if there's a group of little pricks running riot is either call for back-up or tackle them. The little cowards mostly do what they're told by someone who can arrest them and get them into trouble with their ma's.

Most of the little shits who used to make our lives miserable are now dead, either by their own or someone else's hands. Whereas I'm half-glad they're not around to cause anyone else grief, that's not a good thing. Their lives are usually shit to start off with, so that's not much of a surprise. But letting them continue that way is no answer. As long as people keep ignoring the "minor" crimes, this is going to get worse.

EDIT; I just read your above paragraph. You're right. It's a much wider problem. While people still keep voting arseholes like the current Fianna Fail shower in who are so obviosuly out of touch, nothign will be done to address the social problems of the underpaid.

 

[jane]

Ah, no, Shaney, you're loud and clear. When people feel disenfranchised, you can't just tell them to shut up and write them off, and that's what's happened to a lot of people here as well. People are so used to being infantalised by the state that even the adults behave like children.

I also think the sort of violent, entitled, "only me and my circle matter" insular behaviour crosses all socioeconomic groups, though -- it's just so much more obviously antisocial when it's the 'obvious'.

I did have to deal with a situation where the kid was TWELVE, and my options were to file charges or do nothing. If I did the first thing, the kid would probably get a fucking beating and then his family would come and burn me out of my house or something, but the second option seemed just as bad. Neither one went any way toward solving the problem, and the problem wasn't just that little shit. Maybe it was stupid not to follow it up, but I couldn't bring myself to do it -- then there would be two people who'd been assaulted.

He's a little shit, but a lot of people are little shits at 12. How you exercise your shitness depends a lot on the people around you, and the fact that they're written off is bad enough, and assuming they can't do anything decent is not gonna help, although assuming that they WILL won't help, either.

I'm sure we all think it's fucked the fuck up that we're adults and we are becoming increasingly afraid of children. That's so many kinds of wrong, and when that's the case, there's something seriously wrong with every little corner of the whole society, not just the parents of a few little kids.

 

[jane]

I think you're missing the whole protect and to serve bit. Guardians of the peace and all that.

They're a shower of lazy cunts who don't want to get involved in what are only minor crimes to them (no pun intended). Anyone who has had to put up with little thugs who are untouchable only because you're the one who would be done if you sorted it yourself knows this. Minor crimes have a tendency to lead to things like someone being shot by a 13 year old. It's not as if no one knew this type of thing would happen.

I also think that having 22-year old boggers patrolling inner city Dublin is lame as shit, especially since most areas don't take too well to outsiders. It hasn't reduced corruption, it's just plonked them into situations that are over their heads in areas they don't care about. So their only motivation is promotion or their own sense of power.

I think they should recruit police from areas that they will patrol, and really focus on the 'protect and serve' part of their job. I'd rather have someone use their knowledge of the community and have to deal with the inevitable abuse of that, than the reverse, which is that what's the point of being stabbed in the face protecting a neighbourhood you couldn't care less about?

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I also think that having 22-year old boggers patrolling inner city Dublin is lame as shit, especially since most areas don't take too well to outsiders. It hasn't reduced corruption, it's just plonked them into situations that are over their heads in areas they don't care about. So their only motivation is promotion or their own sense of power.

I think they should recruit police from areas that they will patrol, and really focus on the 'protect and serve' part of their job. I'd rather have someone use their knowledge of the community and have to deal with the inevitable abuse of that, than the reverse, which is that what's the point of being stabbed in the face protecting a neighbourhood you couldn't care less about?

i think they have a policy of not putting guards in their own areas - seems sensible to me. it used to be the case, im not sure if it still is or not, that if a complaint was received against a guard then their pay increases (just regular increases like most people in state employment get) would be suspended until the complaint was investigated - a process that could take a while. the result of this was that guards, particularly younger less experienced ones, would (understandably) avoid any kind of situation that might lead to a complaint as even the allegation would mean financial penalty. i heard this from the mouth of the journo jim cusack.

 

[Milker]

Aagh..gonna watch Oliver Twist to get some street-urchin control-action goin..

i've learned this much..kids fear no societal rules.
irish society is selfish and stratified and has a long history of not preparing/planning/tackling w any ambition and, like our gardai, just responds to crisies after crisies w feeble, unimaginative, unconvincing 'acknowledgements' of the 'situation'.
the gardai are useless coz they only respond to crimes committed w disappointing degrees of eagerness.
people are afraid.
i now have to raise my kids to not stand their ground in a scrap coz they might end up maimed for life or dead.
i might emigrate for a dozen years...wheres more sane than here? Canada?

 

[GO]

Just listening to someone tell the story on Gerry Ryan.They lured him out of his house and ambushed the man and killed him.
I say hang the perpetrator.

 

[rettucs]

They're a shower of lazy cunts who don't want to get involved in what are only minor crimes to them.....

What a Guard can do if there's a group of little pricks running riot is either call for back-up or tackle them.....

I've known a lot of guards in my time. They're just normal people mostly. Like with people in any career you find some care more about their jobs than others (how many people do we all know who do the very minimum to get by?). The ones that do care invariably climb the ranks fairly quickly, get taken off the beat, and before long will be behind a desk pulling strings. This means that whats left out on the beat (which is pretty much the face of the gardai) is mostly unmotivated, unambitious (particularly older cops) gardai with the odd livewire who can't wait to get into plain clothes.

The above is true and is the reason for a lot of what is wrong out there. You'll also find that the cops will often know little thugs in their area by name. They're rarely an unknown quantity to them, and they'll probably haul them into the station regularly enough. How demoralising must it be though for them to do so, only to have the little shits back out on the street a couple of hours later?

A few years back I had to give a statement on behalf of a mate who some little scummy fucker accused of assaulting him. My mate's a big bloke, did get involved with said scummer (on behalf of someone he was terrorising), but didn't assault him (didn't hit him - he dragged him away from the scene fairly forcefully though). I recall the 'investigating' garda's attitude - completely pissed off that he had to waste time on what was quite obviously a nothing issue. But the complaint was made and had to be investigated. I think thats the hand the cops are dealt though. They can arrest these fuckers all they want, but when it comes to the crunch they know theres fuck all they can do cos the law is not on their side. Even if they find them with a knife or with drugs, they'll still probably not be able to lock them up.

I've known cops in a particularly bad area of Dublin who told me once that one friday night there were a total of 4 police patrolling the area. Thats 2 cars worth. 4 fucking cops - what the hell are they meant to do? In that situation they're obviously not gonna get tied up with some little anti-social fuckers, while down the road there could be a tiger kidnapping going on.

And haven't the government pretty much admitted as much by their response to whats happening in Limerick? That the resources were inadequate like. Now they say Limerick is the most policed area in Ireland. I say fuck that. The trouble in Limerick is caused by only a handful of people. Limerick is the size of Tallaght population-wise, and I'd suggest Tallaght needs the policing far more.

Anyway, this can only be sorted at the top. We don't need to go the New York route and have 50 cops at every street corner, but I'd suggest we need about 3 times the amount of cops that are currently policing the street, especially in the areas mentioned here.

 

[jane]

Aagh..gonna watch Oliver Twist to get some street-urchin control-action goin..

i've learned this much..kids fear no societal rules.
irish society is selfish and stratified and has a long history of not preparing/planning/tackling w any ambition and, like our gardai, just responds to crisies after crisies w feeble, unimaginative, unconvincing 'acknowledgements' of the 'situation'.
the gardai are useless coz they only respond to crimes committed w disappointing degrees of eagerness.
people are afraid.
i now have to raise my kids to not stand their ground in a scrap coz they might end up maimed for life or dead.
i might emigrate for a dozen years...wheres more sane than here? Canada?

A lot of it, I think, has to do with the way people turn to the government or other officials to solve community problems, and even then, they only care about their 'own'. I'm not talking about vigilante justice or anything, but everyone should take responsibility for community safety, dealing with problems as they come up, and focusing mostly on making the place a nice one to live in.

The government has a role to play, but they can't do everything, and it certainly isn't helpful when people blame them totally any time something goes wrong. Because they are government, they are self-interested, and they will do as little as possible, especially in areas with low voter turnout.

The defeatist attitude about 'community' doesn't help, and we all have it. The first thing most us think when we see attempts at making aesthetic improvements is, "That won't last a week before it gets smashed." And of course shit gets smashed. We assume the worst about everyone, and so everyone ends up just being territorial and defensive and aggressive, which makes people *less* safe.

In some ways, the 'broken window theory' does make sense, although the strategy Guiliani used in NY was not really effective. Sure, it made the city safer for middle-class people and tourists, but they also moved a lot of the poor people out and disenfranchised them even more. It's not the *fault* of poor people -- people in deprived areas are the most likely to be the victims of these crimes, and they are as much victims of it as anyone. And most people who grow up poor or otherwise in difficulty do not turn into murderers; some people who grow up with money do. Putting too much focus on deprivation is as bad as ignoring it.

People like to note the breakdown of the church and the 'traditional' family, but that's not it either. The church and the 'traditional' family was where a lot of these people actually learned their aggression and violence. Authoritarian approaches are also incompatible with the social justice that we all want. Tougher policing would probably make shit worse, especially given their unwillingness to do the job they've already got.

Tougher policing is what you get in a lot of US cities, where you have this massive disconnect between the 'nice' areas and the no-go zones, where in fact, you or I would probably be fine. No one would come after us because they have their own set of laws and they wouldn't draw attention to themselves by attacking some randomer. What that does by default, though, is to suggest that it's 'better' if 'those people' attack each other and leave the 'rest of us' out of it -- it's just as much an us-and-them attitude as anywhere.

In Dublin, people always looked after their own, which was fine so long as they generally recognised most of the population as 'their own'. They wouldn't leave you for dead in the street because they knew your mammy. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but now it's like, "I don't know you personally, so you don't matter one bit." Which means that if you, as a gang of unruly teens, can attack someone without legal consequences, and now you've got all of these uncontextualised 'outsiders' living in your area, there's no incentive not to attack the person whose uncle isn't gonna turn up at your house and tell your mammy what you did.

I find people in this city fairly disengaged, insular and cliquish, which maybe once wasn't the worst thing, but now it sucks. Although it should also be noted that modern Dublin, much as it feels very dodgy, is probably a lot safer than, say 19th-century Dublin. Way safer. Probably because of the change in the social contract, not policing. Means nothing if you've just had your head fucking kicked in, but there are not so many highwaymen these days. But it's not how much violence there is, it's the attitude toward it. When it's okay to say to the victim of a crime that being attacked is just 'what happens', we live in a city where a certain level of violence is accepted. It's okay to expect it because duh, there are a million people sharing limited resources unwillingly, but there's a difference between expecting it and expecting people to jsut accept that it was their turn to get their head kicked in.


I think the whole city needs a visit from Supernanny and probably some group therapy.

 

[rettucs]

A lot of it, I think, has to do with the way people turn to the government or other officials to solve community problems, and even then, they only care about their 'own'. I'm not talking about vigilante justice or anything, but everyone should take responsibility for community safety, dealing with problems as they come up, and focusing mostly on making the place a nice one to live in.

the most ironic thing about all this is that East Wall is probably the safest place to be in Dublin since sunday.

I recall in my own area about 7/8 years back things were reaching boiling point in terms of anti-social behaviour. As with most middle class areas the trouble was confined to weekends. Then tragedy stuck. A young guy was murdered at the bottom of my road. It was the darkest day I ever remember in my area in terms of what it did to the mood of the place. But the transformation was unbelievable. Not a gouger on the street for months and months after. Cops everywhere.

Even to this day things never reached the levels of badness of those days. Its just a shame it took for that poor lad to get murdered for it to happen.

 

[jane]

I've known a lot of guards in my time. They're just normal people mostly. Like with people in any career you find some care more about their jobs than others (how many people do we all know who do the very minimum to get by?). The ones that do care invariably climb the ranks fairly quickly, get taken off the beat, and before long will be behind a desk pulling strings. This means that whats left out on the beat (which is pretty much the face of the gardai) is mostly unmotivated, unambitious (particularly older cops) gardai with the odd livewire who can't wait to get into plain clothes.

The above is true and is the reason for a lot of what is wrong out there. You'll also find that the cops will often know little thugs in their area by name. They're rarely an unknown quantity to them, and they'll probably haul them into the station regularly enough. How demoralising must it be though for them to do so, only to have the little shits back out on the street a couple of hours later?

A few years back I had to give a statement on behalf of a mate who some little scummy fucker accused of assaulting him. My mate's a big bloke, did get involved with said scummer (on behalf of someone he was terrorising), but didn't assault him (didn't hit him - he dragged him away from the scene fairly forcefully though). I recall the 'investigating' garda's attitude - completely pissed off that he had to waste time on what was quite obviously a nothing issue. But the complaint was made and had to be investigated. I think thats the hand the cops are dealt though. They can arrest these fuckers all they want, but when it comes to the crunch they know theres fuck all they can do cos the law is not on their side. Even if they find them with a knife or with drugs, they'll still probably not be able to lock them up.

I've known cops in a particularly bad area of Dublin who told me once that one friday night there were a total of 4 police patrolling the area. Thats 2 cars worth. 4 fucking cops - what the hell are they meant to do? In that situation they're obviously not gonna get tied up with some little anti-social fuckers, while down the road there could be a tiger kidnapping going on.

And haven't the government pretty much admitted as much by their response to whats happening in Limerick? That the resources were inadequate like. Now they say Limerick is the most policed area in Ireland. I say fuck that. The trouble in Limerick is caused by only a handful of people. Limerick is the size of Tallaght population-wise, and I'd suggest Tallaght needs the policing far more.

Anyway, this can only be sorted at the top. We don't need to go the New York route and have 50 cops at every street corner, but I'd suggest we need about 3 times the amount of cops that are currently policing the street, especially in the areas mentioned here.

What scutter said better than I did.

In terms of policing, yeah, it has to be managed from the top. I also think they should recruit from the deprived areas. Most cops in Dublin have bogger accents and don't give a toss, and don't have much time for these kids. I was voxpopping once and I thought it would be funny to get a quote from a garda. When I stopped and asked our lame voxpop question, one cop said, "Dublin? This kip isn't my city." I felt so offended because while I fucking hate the shit out of living here, I still consider myself to have a responsibility toward Dublin because I live here and it's in my interest to give a shite about it.

The solution is not just policing. Part of the incentive for them to do their jobs is that a critical mass of people decide that while we can't rid a city of violence, it's still a worthwhile thing to value the safety of everyone who lives there. Then it's in everyone's interest and the cops just help to manage that.

I also live next to a park, and instead of patrolling on foot, the pigs often drive around at top speed around the footpath, scattering terriers and forcing aul wans to dive out of the way. Once I went for a run in the rain and I saw one hiding under a tree, afraid of a bit of water. A garda, I mean, not a terrier. Afraid of a bit of water, so he was.

So one other small part of the solution is to rid the garda siochana of useless boggers who just want the job security. Let them stay home in boggerfarnham and fight their siblings for the family land.

 

[broken arm]

Even to this day things never reached the levels of badness of those days. Its just a shame it took for that poor lad to get murdered for it to happen.

interesting - did the level of policing drop and the crime stay down? did some people move from/to the area? were new groups formed?

I think what Jane is getting at is the need for a more fundamental change in how dublin people look after each other. More cops is fine but it is only temporary displacement tactic and all the structural, cultural and socialisation issues aren't changed by a few more bobbies on the beat.

 

[Moods For Mallards]

To jump from point to point, answering some people's posts:

Ah, there's always someone who uses an incident like this to call for the legalisation of various drugs. Any violent incident will do, generally.

As far as I know, very few new football pitches have been provided in older areas of the city in recent years (in fact they are more likely to be built upon), so I wouldn't go blaming football just because you're not sporty.

Writing off murderers is fine by me, whatever their age.

And this guy who got killed, he wasn't an 'outsider', he wasn't the other. He was a local. So insularity doesn't come into it in this case (though I do agree that there is a definite and unwelcoming clannishness in the culture of Dublin).

In general, Jane is speaking a lot of sense on this thread - there isn't a top-down approach that will make kids less violent. There does have to be some level of responsibility taken by these populations, where bullies basically have the run of the place. Nobody came forward to identify those murdering kids in Drimnagh last year, even though plenty of people knew who they were. Easier said than done, but that kind of submissiveness and cowardliness speaks of a demoralised community.

 

[Moods For Mallards]

So one other small part of the solution is to rid the garda siochana of useless boggers

Agreed. Perhaps there could be some Police Academy-style recruitment drive?

 

[Moods For Mallards]

Scutter - I think the carry-on in the middle-class area you speak of was just that - carry-on and messing that eventually got out of hand. It wasn't a deeply ingrained societal problem. It was acting-up by little pricks who reckoned they could play at being from tougher areas.
I'm not as familiar with the area as you are, but the fact that that particular murder hasn'r been followed up by any more in 10 years probably shows that the problem wasn't 'real' as a social issue in the first place.

 

[broken arm]

YouTube - Police academy 1 larvelle jones scenes