Bomb hoax at Sligo Quayside

magnumlady

Don't know if any of you were there today it was pretty chaotic. I'm surprised that they didn't put an announcement over a loudspeaker instead of just having security telling people to leave the centre.

nanook

any idea of what time or who was behind it

magnumlady

It was around 3.30pm, don't know who was behind it.
From listening to the radio it seems that the Quayside got a phone warning and were told they had 3 minutes to clear the place.
The Guards searched the place in 20 minutes (!) and then let people back in again.

Gillie

20 minutes? How many gardaí? 200?
That place is huge. No way a proper search can be conducted in 20 minutes!

magnumlady

My thoughts exactly. Couldn't believe the amount of people that went straight back in there, thank goodness it was only a hoax.

nanook

you have to remember that in the 80's bomb warning were a regular thing.

20 mins does seem a bit fast for a place that size. did they have sniffer dogs or anything

magnumlady

I didn't see any dogs, just about 5 guards.

donegalman1

I would think that the Gardai easily knew it was a hoax. Never in 30 years of the troubles was anyone given a three minute warning, showing the pure amateurism of the caller.

Also Gardai would tend to look at the points where a bomber would place a bomb either for structural impact going for massive casualties. This rules out a lot of the centre. But in reality the Gardai have to be seen to take it seriously even though they would have known before they arrived by the nature of the warning.

Codewords and intelligence also always played a part in these situations. What the idiot who called probably didn't count on is how successful tracking hoax callers has become.

nanook

hopefully this will be the case and the muppets will pay for the stupidity.

I cant beleive that some people still think this is a method of humor. I remember in the 80's a guy i knew would ring in to school and dunnes just for a laugh, some laugh.