Murder & Garda checkpoint at Barefield, Co. Clare

simu

There was a Garda checkpoint at Barefield, Co. Clare today - the Bus Éireann Galway-Cork bus I was travelling on was delayed for a whole hour! It must have had something to do with this murder investigation.

Does anyone have any idea what the gardaí were up to? What's the logic in blocking one of the country's main thoroughfares (on the Galway-Limerick-Cork route) like that on a friday evening? Did they think they were randomly going to find the murderer with a big guilty look on his face or what?

And not even an apology for wasting an hour of our lives! :mad:

billy the squid

nope but given the fact that the victim was a taxi driver there is a chance that he might have used that road and there is a chance that someone travelling on that road today might have seen him on the night he was murdered.

parasite

it's for the off-chance that they will be able to jog someone's memory to help apprehend a brutal killer, they're hardly doing it for a laugh

boo @ this thread

simu

billy the squid wrote:

nope but given the fact that the victim was a taxi driver there is a chance that he might have used that road and there is a chance that someone travelling on that road today might have seen him on the night he was murdered.

So the whole delay was just so they could ask people questions????? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If this was done for every murder, the county's road system would be a mess.

/edit

In fact, is ther any way I could make a complaint about this? How do you make complaints about the guards?

billy the squid

simu wrote:

So the whole delay was just so they could ask people questions????? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If this was done for every murder, the county's road system would be a mess.

well if it helps prevent someone else getting their throat cut from ear to ear its good enough for me.

as for whether it is done for every murder or not. this murder happened to be of someone who worked on the roads, so chances are someone now on the roads might have seen him before he was killed. If the murder occoured on O connell street in Dublin they would be asking people questions there too.

edit/

you could always go to the garda complaints commission, but i doubt you will get too far.

simu

billy the squid wrote:

well if it helps prevent someone else getting their throat cut from ear to ear its good enough for me.

Why not shut the whole county down, block the borders and go from house to house while they're at it? The chances of someone's memory being jogged are pretty slim compared to all the hassle they caused.

What's wrong with putting notices on papers and TV/radio to alert people?

billy the squid

simu wrote:

Why not shut the whole county down, block the borders and go from house to house while they're at it? The chances of someone's memory being jogged are pretty slim compared to all the hassle they caused.

What's wrong with putting notices on papers and TV/radio to alert people?

what other course of action do you suggest. call irish psychics live?

simu

billy the squid wrote:

what other course of action do you suggest. call irish psychics live?

Look for forensic evidence, draw up a list of suspects, interview locals (but not by blocking a main road), ask for help in the press, watch out for suspicious behaviour, the usual.

Doper Than U

Wait a second.. someone was murdered, and you're complaining about an hour in traffic? You're joking right?

simu

Doper Than U wrote:

Wait a second.. someone was murdered, and you're complaining about an hour in traffic? You're joking right?

It strikes me as looking for a needle in a haystack AND it was an extra hour onto a 4 hour journey on a bus!

kinkstr

If you feel so strongly about it go and complain to the Gardai, an hour was taken from your existence, the taxi driver got his EXISTENCE taken away for ever because some scumbag murdered him and you have the balls to give out about it

billy the squid

simu wrote:

Look for forensic evidence,

Some evidence was lost as the car was partially burned out.

draw up a list of suspects

From where. the only people who could be suspects would be anyone waiting for a taxi on the night the driver of the taxi was murdered. best place to wait for a taxi is, wait for it, at the side of a road..

It is possible that passing motorists saw someone waiting for a taxi on that road

simu

kinkstr wrote:

If you feel so strongly about it go and complain to the Gardai, an hour was taken from your existence, the taxi driver got his EXISTENCE taken away for ever because some scumbag murdered him and you have the balls to give out about it

As I said, needle in a haystack i.e. seems like an inefficient way to carry out investigation - it's a main route not a country backwater road so most travellers on it are not locals.

simu

billy the squid wrote:

From where. the only people who could be suspects would be anyone waiting for a taxi on the night the driver of the taxi was murdered. best place to wait for a taxi is, wait for it, at the side of a road..

It is possible that passing motorists saw someone waiting for a taxi on that road

Well, what's more likely - that he's a serial killer who preys on taxi-drivers or that he had a grudge against the guy for some other reason? I'd go for the latter.

It's possible but not likely.

billy the squid

simu wrote:

As I said, needle in a haystack i.e. seems like an inefficient way to carry out investigation - it's a main route not a country backwater road so most travellers on it are not locals.

you were late, this man is now "late of"

which of you can go home to their family today, you or him.

by the way bad things happen on that galway to cork road, it wont be the first or last time you will be late on the bus.

d22ontour

simu wrote:

Why not shut the whole county down, block the borders and go from house to house while they're at it? The chances of someone's memory being jogged are pretty slim compared to all the hassle they caused.

What's wrong with putting notices on papers and TV/radio to alert people?

Well i am sorry to the inconvience it must have caused you, i will ring the garda com and tell him to explain to you personally why they have to investigate murders.Don't they realise how much of an inconvienence it is to have someone murdered near were you travel.A checkpoint whatever will they think of next

simu

billy the squid wrote:

you were late, this man is now "late of"

which of you can go home to their family today, you or him.

I'm not condoning the murder - I'm criticising the way the investigation is being carried out!

by the way bad things happen on that galway to cork road, it wont be the first or last time you will be late on the bus.

I've been taking that route regularly for a year and a half now and that's the first time there's been a significant delay.

billy the squid

someones going to regret this thread when they sober up

simu

billy the squid wrote:

someones going to regret this thread when they sober up

You're drunk then?

I wouldn't mind helping out in a murder investigation but as I have said more than once, the chaces of getting leads from this sort of thing seem very slim and when you weigh that up against the inconvenience caused, does not seem worthwhile.

parasite

there were radio notices all day, to be fair

d22ontour

billy the squid wrote:

someones going to regret this thread when they sober up

Well said.

Can people not just get murdered in the cities to keep the bus timetables running on time.

billy the squid

simu wrote:

You're drunk then?

I wish

I wouldn't mind helping out in a murder investigation but as I have said more than once, the chaces of getting leads from this sort of thing seem very slim and when you weigh that up against the inconvenience caused, does not seem worthwhile.

tell you what here are the details for the garda complaints board

http://www.oasis.gov.ie/justice/general/garda_siochana_complaints_board.html#id3126417

when you get a reply, post it here.

chances are they wont bother or they will tell you diplomatically where to go.

oh and a slim chance is still a chance.

simu

billy the squid wrote:

I wish



tell you what here are the details for the garda complaints board

http://www.oasis.gov.ie/justice/general/garda_siochana_complaints_board.html#id3126417

when you get a reply, post it here.

chances are they wont bother or they will tell you diplomatically where to go.

oh and a slim chance is still a chance.

Yeah but don't they consider the law of diminishing returns?

Complaining sounds like yet more wastage of time so I won't bother but it was fun giving out about it here!

d22ontour

I bet it wasn't fun to the taxi driver or his family,you and your (if drunk is sort of excusible) trolling

billy the squid

maybe you could get an announcment read on Clare FM asking all murderers to do their thing at the beginning of the week so as not to delay your bus

simu

Gosh, it's easy to outrage people here:). I must be off the Zeitgeist on this one.

The General

I agree with simu, the gardai stoping asking people if they seen **** is pointless

chump

says he to me,



conas a ta

RainyDay

simu wrote:

Why not shut the whole county down, block the borders and go from house to house while they're at it? The chances of someone's memory being jogged are pretty slim compared to all the hassle they caused.

What's wrong with putting notices on papers and TV/radio to alert people?

Why don't you knock on the widow's front door, look her in the eye and vent your frustration on her? I'm sure she'll make sure none of her future husbands get murdered so that you don't get any further traffic delays which inconvenience you.

And given your obvious expertise in running murder investigations and knowing what works and what doesn't work, give the Garda Supt in charge of the investigation a call and let him have all your expert advice. I'm sure he'll give you a fair hearing.

BuffyBot

There was a Garda checkpoint at Barefield, Co. Clare today - the Bus Éireann Galway-Cork bus I was travelling on was delayed for a whole hour!

How terrible for you. An hour you'll never get back. Much more important than the life someone else won't be getting back.

Fysh

Maybe it's just me being a horrible cynical bastard, but....

accoring to this story from the examiner, the last people to get a lift with the guy caught the cab from the office itself. Not from the side of the street. So the people to ask would probably be other people who caught a cab from that cab office at around that time on that night, not just random motorists.

From there to shutting down a major road at a peak time on friday evening without stating any reason seems pretty stupid to me. The guy got murdered in a horrible way - that's pretty crappy for him and his family. Is a poorly-conducted murder investigation resorting to "sure it's one in a million but ye never know, we might get lucky" tactics really going to help this? It's not going to bring him back, and if that's what they're resorting to instead of forensic studies then it's doubtful they'll catch the killers either. Wow, huge comfort I can see for the family there.

"A slim chance is still a chance". Is that the best we can expect? The killers tried and failed to set fire to the car. Meaning there should still be some useful forensic evidence there. Not to mention on the body of the victim. Compared to the relative chances of getting someone who was catching a cab on a friday night to remember who was waiting for a cab with them (given that a popular friday night hobby in ireland seems to be getting so drunk you can hardly walk), I think forensics might be the way to go.

Ciaran500

Why are people talking like setting up this road block is the only thing there doing for this investigation. I'm sure they have intervied everyone they could from the taxi office, collected forensic evidence, interviewed people around his neighbour hood and any other obvious thought people are coming up with for the investigation.

Fysh

Thinking about this a bit more, actually...does anyone know of any figures about the relative likelihood of this kind of questioning actually getting some useful or breakthrough evidence? I ask because, after posting, I went and looked up murder rate figures and it would appear that we in the Republic are one of the top ten safest countries in terms of murder rates per 100,000 population.

So it may be that the gardai really don't have huge amounts of experience of investigating murders (particularly brutal ones) because they don't happen much, and therefore are resorting to any tactic they can think of.

The only thing I can find is this document which claims that about 1/3 of crimes reconstructed on CrimeWatch went on to be resolved as a result of evidence gained from the reconstruction - but that's not quite the same thing.

alleepally

It struck me that perhaps by creating a roadblock it is designed to induce a psychological pressure on the murderers, the net is tightening type of effect designed to flush them out... If it was a member of my family that had been murdered I'd like to think that no stone was left unturned in trying to find the killer. If that meant setting up a checkpoint in the hope (however small) that it might jog someones memory then I'd be all for that.

I really can't believe the original poster is sitting there fretting about an hours delay . The mind boggles. In situations like this maybe you should try putting yourself in the position of the family of the murder victim and you read this thread... How would it make you feel? Angry I would think and you might also think that the person that posted it was an arrogant pr!ck too.

[Jackass]

It was believed to be a hitchhiker...they were just asking people i.e. bus drivers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, traders etc. who would use the road frequently if tey saw any hitchhikers...I understand it's frustrating...we all have places to be, but i don't think it's worth complaing about...if it was your mother/father/brother/sister/son/daughter who was murderd i doubt you would think it was such a waist of time...also since it is believed to be a random killing, there are no possible suspects, and that hour of your life they "waisted" may get vital information, which may lead to his/her capture, which could save a lot more hours of someone elses life...possibly your mother/father/brother/sister/son/daughter....even yourself!

Fysh

I'm not speaking for the OP here, but how the hell do you get from "the roadblock was an almighty pain in the arse and seems pretty pointless" to making a personal attack on the family of the deceased? It's a pretty big jump to make, and equivalent to me saying "you disagree with me, therefore you are a child molester" or something equally dumb. Are the family personally asking for the roadblock? No. Is it them implementing something that may or may not give *any* useful evidence? (see my previous post regarding the effectiveness of these sort of tactics - if anyone has hard figures about this, I'd be interested to see them)

Regarding the "psychological pressure" angle...well, I don't know about that. Given the brutal nature of the killing, I'd say it's unlikely the killer will be guilt-tripped into giving himself up - it's not quite the same as the Robert Houlihan case, where the body was left pretty much intact. It's not impossible, I suppose.

Call me callous here, but I'm not personally involved in any way with the family who've just lost a member. Therefore I don't really care much, at least any more than I would when I hear about anyone getting murdered or robber or whatever. The Houlihan kid case was local to me (I have family in middleton), so I had an interest in it. All around the world, every hour, people are murdered, commit suicide, die of hunger or disease or any number of other cases. Either you spend all day every day caring about all of them, or you filter things out by what affects you personally.

seamus

It's a bit of a pointless exercise IMO. They do this all the time. Anyone who saw anything worth mentioning would go to a Garda station. Otherwise they're just going to say "No" like everyone else when the Garda asks them on the roadside.

I was stopped at 11pm just outside Blessington one Friday night, asking if I remember seeing anytning suspicious at the same time the *previous* friday, because a robbery had taken place. I can't remember most of what happened last night, never mind last week.