The Lusk Killings: Was A Decision Made To Shoot To Kill?

Well, it beats your average trip to the shops for excitement. There you are at the counter, ready to take possession of your morning banana and there’s a flurry at the door. Thank you very much, the girl behind the counter says when you give her the cash. Who are these men bustling in, pumping adrenalin, and why are they… masked?

They’re roaring and shouting now, and one of them is brandishing a gun. Fuck, now there’s another bunch of them, clattering in and roaring and shouting even louder. LIE DOWN ON THE FLOOR! PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS!
One of the first group spins around. Fuck, what’s going on? JESUS! That fucker’s firing. That other fucker’s falling. And that one, he’s down too. Mother of holy Jesus fucking Christ!
They’re still roaring and shouting. It’s fucking mayhem, there’s what look like dead bodies on the floor and somebody over there is screaming. At least I’m still alive – for the moment…
Fuck! I’m lying on my fucking banana!

That was the scene – or something approximating it – in a shop in Lusk in Co. Dublin, on Thursday morning last week. It’s a relatively sleepy little village, and at 8 o’clock in the morning there wasn’t a lot stirring. Or so it might have seemed to the casual observer. But trouble was brewing. A mini platoon of detectives from the Garda Emergency Response Unit had the village Post Office and the shop beside it staked out and they were expecting action.
They’d had a tip-off that a robbery was planned – the estimated 100k-plus that had been delivered to the post office for the weekly social welfare payments, representing a potentially decent haul for any prospective gang of thieves.
The robbers – who intended to bludgeon their way into the Post Office through an inside wall – showed on time. But they went in by the back door of the shop rather than the front and the gardai had to improvise. They followed the raiders into the shop and in the most significant confrontation of its type in years in Ireland, they gunned down and killed two of the criminal gang.
The question is: did they have to?
Let’s get one thing straight: anyone who carries out an armed robbery is putting himself or herself in the firing line. Some gang members may set out assuming that they will use a gun only to instil fear – and they may even have a determination that under no circumstances will they ever fire it. But that is almost entirely irrelevant: when the unexpected happens, who is to say that they won’t pull the trigger in panic? And in any event, no Garda can be asked to assume other than that an armed robber represents a threat to life and limb.
That said, there are rules of combat to which the Gardai must adhere. The force used by Gardai must always be proportionate and necessary. The objective must always be to avoid loss of life, if possible. And it must also be not to expose members of the public to unnecessary risk. Taking all of these considerations into account, there are questions about the events in Lusk that need to be asked – and that need to be answered with unequivocal accuracy.

There are a number of disquieting aspects to what happened. We know that only one of the raiders was carrying a gun. Reports from the scene seem to confirm that it was not fired – and yet two people were killed by the Gardai.
We are told that the man carrying the one gun in the possession of the raiders, Colm Griffin, waved it in the face of a Garda, and that he was shot as a result.
According to leaked reports from the Gardai, Eric Hopkins, who was unarmed, made a lunge at a Garda – and this is why he was shot. This account, however, may or may not be accurate.
It is worth bearing in mind that the Gardai enjoy a very close relationship with certain members of the press corps. What we can say is that the Gardai moved quickly to get a version of events into the public domain that supports their actions. This is understandable. What we can also say is that, even if there was an over reaction by individual Gardai involved in the raid, the natural response on the part both of the Gardai themselves and of Government politicians will be to seek to justify what took place.
Which is why it is not good enough for a member of the Garda Siochana to conduct an inquiry into the shootings.
Indeed it is interesting in itself that a decision was made immediately that an inquiry would be held and that a senior member of the force, Chief Superintendent Kevin Ludlow, was appointed to take charge of it. That decision needs to be overturned. While there is no reason whatsoever to doubt that Kevin Ludlow is a person of the highest integrity, to ensure public confidence in the process the inquiry must be carried out by someone with no links, good, bad or indifferent to the Gardai.

In the immediate aftermath of the killings, the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, commented that people wanted something done about crime and should not become weak-kneed when a Garda operation resulted in the death of a couple of criminals.
The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, then echoed this strange comment.
Which got me wondering. The Minister announced Operation Anvil, the Garda initiative through which the Lusk stakeout was financed, in the Dail. There is clearly a desire both on his part and on the government’s to “do something” about crime. But how far does the license given to Gardai to achieve that objective run? And who is involved in deciding what, if any, limits apply?
It seems self-evident, therefore, that the scope of any enquiry must extend beyond the actions of individual gardai. The guys on the ground are in the firing line, and in particular circumstances take their lives into their hands in order to protect the interests of the public at large. To focus on their actions alone would be to miss the point. Because while, of course, there may be trigger-happy individuals within the force, policies are decided higher up.
For example, was a decision taken at a very high level to show the criminal fraternity, at the first opportunity, that the Gardai, and even the Government, mean business? Was a decision taken that a few dead bodies might be helpful to the cause – that what the criminals need to know is that the Gardai will take them out if necessary?
It is quite clear from the stance adopted by the Minister for Justice in relation to Anti Social Behaviour Orders, On The Spot Fines and other aspects of the new Criminal Justice Bill that he is unhappy with the limitations currently imposed on the forces of law and order by the requirements of due process. Might that thinking have filtered its way through to and influenced the operation in Lusk?
And could this be why the less lethal weapons, requisitioned by the Emergency Response Unit and bought and paid for by the taxpayer, were left behind on this occasion – as seems to have happened?
And what about the risk to ordinary citizens which the handling of the raid entailed? Was getting their men seen as a higher value by the Gardai involved in foiling the raid than protecting members of the public?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but it is essential that they should be asked. Politicians may indeed have picked up the message from focus groups, and other soundings, that this is what many people want – a hard line on crime and damn the niceties. Certainly, in the wake of the Lusk operation, the tide of public opinion seems to be in favour of shooting now and asking questions later. But that does not make it right.
It will take a fully independent inquiry to get to the heart of Operation Anvil – and to uncover all of the facts about the killing of Colm Griffin and Eric Hopkins in Lusk.
They may have been criminals, but their families deserve no less than the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth…