Pearse street gardai = heavy handed

darc

In my day of youth about 20 years ago, gardai in Dublin had a decent attitude and got you to behave yourself by just giving a quiet word. But 2 incidences recently has me alarmed by the heavy handedness of gardai - both involving good friends.

Both incidences were involving pearse street and one has gone to garda ombudman and the second is with solicitors.

Incident 1 - 4 weeks ago - Best friend threatened with arrest for no reason except walking on footpath to taxi at 3am - Sober, as he was minder for the night and was to be driving home from my house when he got there. Only reason was 2nd friend had glass of coke in his hand and informed garda that he wished to drink it before handing over glass. Friend was merry & would have had 5 / 6 pints during the night - Age 48. No singing, shouting or anything involved. Friend 2 ends up being arrested and pushed to the ground. Friend 1 threatend with arrest and pushed to the wall. Garda changes tact when colleagues attend. Case was thrown out of court last week with Judge giving warning to the garda for senseless arrest. - No apology from the garda. Case with ombudsman.


Incident 2 - Two weeks ago. Two Italian friends (both work in IFSC) get onto Luas at Stephen's Green. Two plainclothes gardai jump on and drag them off, push themn to the ground and hand cuff them. They shouted to passersby to call the police and then they are shown the garda badges.

They are told they are being arrested for theft and are bundled into garda van and put into cells. Both received kicks and punches from the gardai (photographic & medical evidence) Left in cells for 2 hours then asked for ID and asked why they did not have passports with them. They explained that their passports were in their apartment.

The keys to the apartment were taken from their bags and the apartment searched by gardai. (left in utter mess) Passports found and suddenly gardai realise it was mistaken identity!!! - Yep they f*cked up.

Then rather than apologise profusely they charged the italians with resisting arrest and they were brought to court seven hours later. Court threw out the case immediately and asked for report on the incident. Solicitors involved in taking a case for wrongful arrest, fasle imprisonment & assault against the gardai involved.

One of the garda involved has visited the workplace of one of the italians and has warned hime not to take the case further. The other Italian has request a move to the London offices of the firm he works for.



So what is it with Dublin Gardai - particularly Pearse Street - Thankfully it was our first evening visit to Dublin for 2 years and I can assure you it will be our last.

I thought the age of bent cops was gone but it seems as prevalent as ever - I have had respect for gardai for 40 years because my family have been involved in different aspects of the justice system here, but now I have no respect whatsoever - one bad cop is possible but the second incident involved six gardai! - Time these people were dealt with at the highest level.

Pearse street gardai have to be investigated at the highest level. We do not live in Zimbabwe. Gardai must show respect to receive respect or we'll be in a lost situation. I have atotally different and negative view of garda intimidation - before I would ahve said there was a reason why someone was agressively treated by the gardai, now I will easily believe the bullying and intimation that people receive unfairly by the gung ho badge holders. Shame on you. - And with luck justice will prevail and these scum will be on the dole where they belong.

TheNog

Darc,

I agree with you that if there is members of the Gardai out there who use unreasonable force or dish out a beating should be investigated and thrown out of the force. I think I speak for all members who post here when I say that. There is nothing more demoralising to those of us who try to do right by the public when something like this happens.

I would like to point out though and I'm sure you are not the type of person to think this but don't judge the rest of us by this incident or any other incident that brings shame on the organisation. There are a hell of alot of good people working in the AGS. People who bend over backwards to help the public. We do have our bad days, we can sometimes misread the situation and we do sometimes get it wrong but for many our hearts and intentions are in the right place.

timmywex

There are bad people in ags, theres no doubt. And to police dublin, an area around pearse partiuclary, you have to lay down the law, tell everyone whos boss.

But i would imagine there is more to these cases, its a bit one sided, gardai dont just pick on some randomer to arrest for a laugh, ok, they mightnt have had reasonable cause but more than likely there was some abuse or something in that case.

Secondly, mistaken identity happens............:D

darc

I can assure you, in the first case, it happened exactly as is and the ombudsman has opened an investigation and I have been asked for a staement - I was about 20 yards away watching, but was not sober:D.

Mendes in London was mistaken identity too!

I have no problem with gardai per se, its the Dublin ganster type gardai that seem to come up in headlines. Where I live I HAVE to be nice to senior members otherwise my bins won't be taken in on wednesdays and I might not get invited for christmas morning eggnog - his wife makes agreat one!! -0 But that's what I mean. I live beside a seargent, I know 2 or the armed response guys and yet I was DISGUSTED by the treatment I saw handed out to 2 friends for casuing no problems - the only reason I saw that caused this bad apple to arrest friend 2, was because he let 3 young fellows run away from him after when they were being chased by other guards. - Basically he didn't want to lose face with his colleagues.

eroo

Tbh, if there is an ongoing investigation in this case, then it isn't suitable to comment on it in a public forum imo.

civdef

Agreed.