Man and woman shot dead, two others injured in Dublin gangland shooting

Spider Web

ChikiChiki wrote: »

A'int that the the truth. No point arguing. People are so thick and can't see the root cause of these issues its ridiculous.

The root causes are (and these don't apply to all such folks by a long shot, but when they do: ) generations of poverty and then welfare dependency, and lack of access to/valuing education so stunted emotional development, leading to anger and ignorance, leading to a sense of victimhood and entitlement.

They need a helping hand but it's a two-way street.

Are Am Eye

Spider Web wrote: »

Why are people so obsessed with blaming people who are not directly responsible? (In other contexts too, not just this).

There is only one person who made the decision to become involved in violent crime, and one person who pulled the trigger.

Taking their responsibilities away from them and blaming the guards and politicians is one surefire way of giving them a laugh.

What do people think the guards should do?

It's not either/ or.

If you kill someone you are resposible for your actions and are a bad person.

The police are responsible for investigating your crime competently and ethically and bringing you to justice. If they don't they are bad people.

More than one person can be bad or can be deserving of criticism.

The gunmen in ballymun are scumbags. Our police force is corrupt and ineffective. Those statements are not mutually exclusive.

NIMAN

Are Am Eye wrote: »

The gunmen in ballymun are scumbags. Our police force is corrupt and ineffective. Those statements are not mutually exclusive.

The entire force?
Every single member?

I bet people say that exact same thing in every country in the world.

Ronaldinho

Wanderer78 wrote: »

what causes criminality and how do we prevent it?

Criminality is a fairly broad term but if we look at the drugs trade for example, I would say there are circles that have been involved in organised crime for many, many years now and it has been passed from generation to generation. Then there are people getting caught up in it looking to make a quick buck, or because it makes them tick - be it the violence or the sense of power it gives them. And then there are people who get dragged into it, maybe not of their own volition but maybe one mistake get's them dragged into it and they can't really find a way out.
Then on the other hand, there's the people out there that use drugs that create the industry in the first place. Not blameless either.

A few people have suggested legalising drugs. That's deserving of a thread of its own. I don't have a very strong view on it either way but I think I it happened the void left by drugs would be filled by some other form of racketeering.

What can be done to prevent it? Better policing of the ports and coastline maybe. I think it's a bit of a case of whack a mole. Put one gang out of business and another will fill the void. I think another poster above put forward the idea that this this violence stems mainly from socioeconomic imbalances and that by going after those issues we will prevent a lot of crime. I'd be a bit sceptical of that - there are always going to be hardcore criminals who will never go on the straight and narrow. Ought to be a marginal benefit though.

Are Am Eye

NIMAN wrote: »

The entire force?
Every single member?

I bet people say that exact same thing in every country in the world.

The organisation is corrupt. That makes no assumptions on how many or how few individuals are, or to what extent each.

Organisational corruption is much more insidious than any individual malfeasance. It happens when there is no internal standard of ethics or accountability. And no external oversight or responsibility.

To take but one example. 20 million euro of public money was siphoned off to private bank accounts and private social clubs. The organisational corruption is the efforts that were made across various layers of hierachy and numerous individuals to hide this, subdue it and prevent anyone outside from holding them to account.

Your remark that people in every country think their police are corrupt is not backed up by any source and is manifestly untrue.

Wanderer78

Ronaldinho wrote: »

Criminality is a fairly broad term but if we look at the drugs trade for example, I would say there are circles that have been involved in organised crime for many, many years now and it has been passed from generation to generation. Then there are people getting caught up in it looking to make a quick buck, or because it makes them tick - be it the violence or the sense of power it gives them. And then there are people who get dragged into it, maybe not of their own volition but maybe one mistake get's them dragged into it and they can't really find a way out.
Then on the other hand, there's the people out there that use drugs that create the industry in the first place. Not blameless either.

A few people have suggested legalising drugs. That's deserving of a thread of its own. I don't have a very strong view on it either way but I think I it happened the void left by drugs would be filled by some other form of racketeering.

What can be done to prevent it? Better policing of the ports and coastline maybe. I think it's a bit of a case of whack a mole. Put one gang out of business and another will fill the void. I think another poster above put forward the idea that this this violence stems mainly from socioeconomic imbalances and that by going after those issues we will prevent a lot of crime. I'd be a bit sceptical of that - there are always going to be hardcore criminals who will never go on the straight and narrow. Ought to be a marginal benefit though.

we could go on and on, it really is a complex issue with complex root causes in which we dont actually fully understand, and may never fully understand, but im convinced our current approaches to certain crimes such as drug crimes have failed. it's time for something radical, a radical change in our approach. over the last few decades, enormous amounts of research has been done into a lot of these complex issues that have been discussed, unfortunately its taking a long time for this research to filter through our various social structures, including our political systems, and sadly we re stuck with what id call draconian policies and systems in order to deal with these issues. round and round we go!

blinding

Are Am Eye wrote: »

The organisation is corrupt. That makes no assumptions on how many or how few individuals are, or to what extent each.

Organisational corruption is much more insidious than any individual malfeasance. It happens when there is no internal standard of ethics or accountability. And no external oversight or responsibility.

To take but one example. 20 million euro of public money was siphoned off to private bank accounts and private social clubs. The organisational corruption is the efforts that were made across various layers of hierachy and numerous individuals to hide this, subdue it and prevent anyone outside from holding them to account.

Your remark that people in every country think their police are corrupt is not backed up by any source and is manifestly untrue.

There seems to be a lot of financial criminals in our Police force.........

Spider Web

Are Am Eye wrote: »

It's not either/ or.

If you kill someone you are resposible for your actions and are a bad person.

The police are responsible for investigating your crime competently and ethically and bringing you to justice. If they don't they are bad people.

More than one person can be bad or can be deserving of criticism.

The gunmen in ballymun are scumbags. Our police force is corrupt and ineffective. Those statements are not mutually exclusive.

I never said it had to be either/or but blame is not equal between those directly responsible and those indirectly responsible. And those indirectly responsible are *certainly* not MORE to blame (as some seem to be implying here, which is just crazy).

There is an absolute fetish for blame. When the responsible party isn't available to target, someone else will be targeted. Someone HAS to be blamed. Someone is homeless because of numerous reasons? Blame the government. A child is abused - blame social services instead of the ***** who abused them. Some blame does lie with others, but it should never be transferred disproportionately.

These criminals didn't emerge out of a vacuum of course - they would have grown up in dreadful circumstances, as would their parents and their parents and so on (but ultimately it's up to them to take responsibility for themselves, not other people). It is a complex, generational cycle - not "the guards" or non specific politicians.

To suggest that none of the guards whatsoever are working hard to tackle this very difficult issue (lack of success is not always down to incompetence) is extremely unhelpful and dishonest.

Are Am Eye

O.c executions are higher here per head of population than most other european countries. AGS lost the grip completely on organised crime a number of years ago. They don't know whats going on. Its about reversing this situation not blame for blame's sake. There are a number of key changes we need to make to the criminal Justice System. Top of the list is an outside, politically independent management brought in to run AGS. And to weed out the corruption and the inefficiencies.
What you see in ballymun yesterday are symptons of a sickness that's been brewing for years. You need to treat that sickness at source. Down the line the ugly symptoms will disipate.

hatrickpatrick

Ronaldinho wrote: »

Law and Order starts with each and every one of us.

Then, it falls to the Government to take remedial action on legislation, policing etc. And then further, the Judiciary.

If those people hadn't gotten themselves involved in criminality in the first place, the events of yesterday evening simply wouldn't have happened.

Agreed, but do you accept that by allowing such people to freely walk the streets, the government is failing to take the remedial action you have admitted that they are indeed responsible for taking?

People convicted of multiple gang related offences should NEVER again be completely free as citizens. Gangland indoctrination should be considered similarly to alcoholism - there's no such thing as a "recovered" alcoholic, only an alcoholic in ongoing recovery. If you've once fallen deeply down the gangland rabbit hole, racked up numerous convictions for violent crime, etc, as far as I'm concerned you should be permanently marked, tagged, and under surveillance - just like a sex offender.

To be honest I actually believe that such people should get genuine "until the day you die" life sentences in prison, but for some reason that idea seems to be massively unpopular.

end of the road

scoey wrote: »

Have you been to Japan lately? A developed country that comes down hard on drug users, including marajuana users. The population have little sympathy for drug users and the majority support zero tolerance.

Don't see too many heroin junkies falling around the streets of Tokyo or causing hassle for the law abiding population trying to go about their business.
I hear the cities there are pretty safe actually. And without giving up on law enforcement and resorting to legalisation.

Singapore too.

Tell me some similarly safe and free of a visible drug problem developed countries that got there by legalising drugs.
I look forward to seeing your list.

those countries still have huge drug problems. Singapore especially. drug taking and selling not being visible doesn't mean there is no problem.

kerry cow

The problem here is the demand that is created by the end user .the majority of these people are not from the lower levels of society .the vast majority of drug users are in the working and professional class .you won't have a quater of the demand if you educated the people who should know better not to be a user .
Can someone tell me simply why the end user should not be proscuted and fined heavily.
What right have these people to use illegal drugs ??

Wanderer78

kerry cow wrote: »

The problem here is the demand that is created by the end user .the majority of these people are not from the lower levels of society .the vast majority of drug users are in the working and professional class .you won't have a quater of the demand if you educated the people who should know better not to be a user .
Can someone tell me simply why the end user should not be proscuted and fined heavily.
What right have these people to use illegal drugs ??

if people choose to use drugs, thats what they choose, you have the same right as them, believe it or not!

lazybones32

I guess i better go to the gardai and tell them i'm responsible for that shooting; i've taken cocaine and therefore have blood on my hands (and up my nose)
Will my moral-superiors come visit me in prison?

Ronaldinho

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Agreed, but do you accept that by allowing such people to freely walk the streets, the government is failing to take the remedial action you have admitted that they are indeed responsible for taking?

People convicted of multiple gang related offences should NEVER again be completely free as citizens. Gangland indoctrination should be considered similarly to alcoholism - there's no such thing as a "recovered" alcoholic, only an alcoholic in ongoing recovery. If you've once fallen deeply down the gangland rabbit hole, racked up numerous convictions for violent crime, etc, as far as I'm concerned you should be permanently marked, tagged, and under surveillance - just like a sex offender.

To be honest I actually believe that such people should get genuine "until the day you die" life sentences in prison, but for some reason that idea seems to be massively unpopular.

Yeah - abolutely. I'd even be in favour of capital punishment for people who've racked up a sufficiently serious and long record. My posts above were more pushing back on the idea that the blame for these sorts of crimes lies at the door of the Government in the first place.

end of the road

kerry cow wrote: »

Can someone tell me simply why the end user should not be proscuted and fined heavily.

because taking a substance should not be a crime.

kerry cow wrote: »

What right have these people to use illegal drugs ??

what right has anyone to take a legal drug. people want to take drugs whether legal or illegal and they will do so, so it's best we allow them to do it safely and legally.

Spider Web

Are Am Eye wrote: »

O.c executions are higher here per head of population than most other european countries. AGS lost the grip completely on organised crime a number of years ago. They don't know whats going on. Its about reversing this situation not blame for blame's sake. There are a number of key changes we need to make to the criminal Justice System. Top of the list is an outside, politically independent management brought in to run AGS. And to weed out the corruption and the inefficiencies.
What you see in ballymun yesterday are symptons of a sickness that's been brewing for years. You need to treat that sickness at source. Down the line the ugly symptoms will disipate.

Sentencing is depressingly atrocious here too

But until the family issues that dog these folks (child after child being raised to believe violence and instilling fear and getting everything you want no matter what damage you do) are obliterated, I can't see much change happening.

Wanderer78

Ronaldinho wrote: »

Yeah - abolutely. I'd even be in favour of capital punishment for people who've racked up a sufficiently serious and long record. My posts above were more pushing back on the idea that the blame for these sorts of crimes lies at the door of the Government in the first place.

and again, what would we actually learn from things such as capital punishment?

our governments are elected by us to create policies that benefit us all, i.e. our governments are us! but if our governments create policies that harm most if not all of us, then us and our governments, and the subsequent policies that are created from these structures must be changed to rectify these issues.

ziggyman17

Spider Web wrote: »

The root causes are (and these don't apply to all such folks by a long shot, but when they do: ) generations of poverty and then welfare dependency, and lack of access to/valuing education so stunted emotional development, leading to anger and ignorance, leading to a sense of victimhood and entitlement.

They need a helping hand but it's a two-way street.

what absolute bollox....... My Parents, along with their sisters and brothers grew up in poverty, my parents like their siblings left school at a young age and made decent lives for themselves, my mother had her christmas presents given to her by The St Vincent De Paul, none of any of their siblings turned to crime and drugs, the main problem with this country is that their is too many families that think its is their birth right to have everything handed to them on a plate, lots of people came from the same places you are describing and most of them never turned to crime and drugs, so stop using that as an excuse,

Wanderer78

ziggyman17 wrote: »

what absolute bollox....... My Parents, along with their sisters and brothers grew up in poverty, my parents like their siblings left school at a young age and made decent lives for themselves, my mother had her christmas presents given to her by The St Vincent De Paul, none of any of their siblings turned to crime and drugs, the main problem with this country is that their is too many families that think its is their birth right to have everything handed to them on a plate, lots of people came from the same places you are describing and most of them never turned to crime and drugs, so stop using that as an excuse,

research says otherwise, apparently, some people 'get lucky'

Gadgetman496

Where's the thread about Man and woman shot dead, two others injured in Dublin gangland shooting gone?

Spider Web

ziggyman17 wrote: »

what absolute bollox....... My Parents, along with their sisters and brothers grew up in poverty, my parents like their siblings left school at a young age and made decent lives for themselves, my mother had her christmas presents given to her by The St Vincent De Paul, none of any of their siblings turned to crime and drugs, the main problem with this country is that their is too many families that think its is their birth right to have everything handed to them on a plate, lots of people came from the same places you are describing and most of them never turned to crime and drugs, so stop using that as an excuse,

Meh, you're obviously just reading what you want to read. What I said doesn't actually contradict what you say.

Even at the very start of the paragraph I said, "these don't apply to all such folks by a long shot". And further down I said they have a sense of victimhood and entitlement - same as what you say about them thinking they deserve to get everything handed to them.

I'm the one here who keeps saying they're responsible for themselves - not the guards, not politicians, not "society". Someone else said these were the root causes of this type of crime - I disputed that and said it's more to do with their upbringings and it goes back generations.

Just because you identify the cause of something, doesn't mean you're making an excuse for it. The children born into such families are blank slates like all infants. How they are raised is bound to be a huge part of who they are, and the cycle keeps going.

septictank

I think a lot you guys should set up a thread in the politics forum, this has become all about the Government and the Garda and the issues of legalising drugs.

Sure there is one already.

PukkaStukka

I'm from near the area of the shooting and still have family living close by. One sibling would live a few minutes away from Balbutcher Drive, and on the night prior to the shooting, there were shots fired near their house during what was suspected to be a row between a nearby resident with a history of criminality and others who had issues with that person. The Gardai were alerted and concern was raised locally over their perceived poor response. Apparently the forensic people didn't turn up to gather evidence until some time after the murders, more that 12 hours later. It should've happened much sooner. I'm also told there was also another armed incident in the Shangan area on the same day. That's three armed instance and two murders in little more than 12 hours.

For me, there are two issues that need to be tackled:

Firstly, and I know this has been discussed ad nauseum here and elsewhere, but the issue of Garda resources and numbers really cannot be overstated. Three armed incidents within 2km in a 12 hour period with two innocent people dead is an outrage. We need to see the sort of effort seen recently to quell the Hutch / Kinahan feud becoming the norm and on a far wider scale, otherwise the violence will undoubtedly get worse and more innocent blood being shed.

The second issue is we have a wholly insufficient number of suitable places of detention. This is allowing serious repeat offenders to remain on the streets and is leading to a policy of what I call "light touch sentencing". From the outset, criminals need to be sentenced appropriately, and not getting probation or suspended sentences for their umpteenth conviction.

Our politicians, in my humble opinion, do not seem to understand the gravity of the situation we are all in.

freshpopcorn

ziggyman17 wrote: »

what absolute bollox....... My Parents, along with their sisters and brothers grew up in poverty, my parents like their siblings left school at a young age and made decent lives for themselves, my mother had her christmas presents given to her by The St Vincent De Paul, none of any of their siblings turned to crime and drugs, the main problem with this country is that their is too many families that think its is their birth right to have everything handed to them on a plate, lots of people came from the same places you are describing and most of them never turned to crime and drugs, so stop using that as an excuse,

I know plenty of people who've being on and off social welfare for all there lives. Whilst I know their situation mightn't be ideal. They've never turned to crime!

begbysback

septictank wrote: »

I think a lot you guys should set up a thread in the politics forum, this has become all about the Government and the Garda and the issues of legalising drugs.

Sure there is one already.

After Hours used to be fun...

Spider Web

Agreed PukkaStukka, the garda issue is lack of resources rather than incompetence in my opinion. It's unlikely that the guards don't want to nail these maniacs.

freshpopcorn wrote: »

I know plenty of people who've being on and off social welfare for all there lives. Whilst I know their situation mightn't be ideal. They've never turned to crime!

See I don't think anyone is disputing that. It's the exceptions who are being talked about here, not the majority.

PukkaStukka

I'd also expand further on my post above by saying that it's high time we got some pan European legislation implemented to deal with organised crime. It appears that the godfather's directing proceedings here are doing so from sunnier climes, and we need the necessary legislative and judicial framework to respond to and counter this. Again, the lay commentators here can see the wisdom and logic in this, but the bureaucrats will spend more time and effort debunking these ideas with reasons why it can't happen rather than MAKING it happen.

Wanderer78

PukkaStukka wrote: »

I'd also expand further on my post above by saying that it's high time we got some pan European legislation implemented to deal with organised crime. It appears that the godfather's directing proceedings here are doing so from sunnier climes, and we need the necessary legislative and judicial framework to respond to and counter this. Again, the lay commentators here can see the wisdom and logic in this, but the bureaucrats will spend more time and effort debunking these ideas with reasons why it can't happen rather than MAKING it happen.

this would require interfering with and changing one of the eu's key aspects, i.e. 'the free movement of capital'. now, what are the odds of changing that one?;)

PukkaStukka

Wanderer78 wrote: »

PukkaStukka wrote: »

I'd also expand further on my post above by saying that it's high time we got some pan European legislation implemented to deal with organised crime. It appears that the godfather's directing proceedings here are doing so from sunnier climes, and we need the necessary legislative and judicial framework to respond to and counter this. Again, the lay commentators here can see the wisdom and logic in this, but the bureaucrats will spend more time and effort debunking these ideas with reasons why it can't happen rather than MAKING it happen.

this would require interfering with and changing one of the eu's key aspects, i.e. 'the free movement of capital'. now, what are the odds of changing that one?;)

Not necessarily and it's more than just capital. For example, It would mean something like InterPol or EuroPol running investigations and prosecutions on behalf of national police agencies in other jurisdictions.

On the subject of capital, free movement in principal is fine. However if that is being abused to further criminal enterprise on a huge scale then that's another matter entirely. Today it's the organised crime lords, but in the future should the threat morph into something ISIS-esque then now's the time to head it off before the nightmare becomes reality.

All of today's problems could've been addressed when they were in their infancy if the foresight and willingness were there all those years ago