PSNI defend response to ‘display of terrorism’ at hunger striker mural

Social media footage of the event shows a group of masked men appear to fire shots into the air.

There have been calls for police action from unionist figures, including DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson who described the event as a “display of terrorism”.

PSNI Superintendent Catherine Magee confirmed in a radio interview yesterday morning that PSNI officers were in the area at the time but were unable to “provide the response to prevent it from taking place”.

Speaking to BBC Radio Foyle, she said: “On this occasion unfortunately we were not able to provide the response to prevent it from taking place but we will have a strong and robust criminal justice strategy to follow it up.”

She added: “We do not discuss intelligence, however it was my working assumption that there was a possibility that there may be an intent to do something of that nature based on previous experience in the city.”

She said there was “a significant police operation in place” on Friday.

“I had my local neighbourhood police officers, who routinely patrol Galliagh every day of the week, they were out on the ground engaging with local residents and providing high visibility local support,” she told the Londondery-based BBC station broadcaster.

“I also had Tactical Support Group (TSG) units available and also patrolling in the area as well”.

She continued: “We need to bear in mind this was an incident that took place over 30 seconds to one minute, where a small group of masked people came out of the shadows, quickly fired off two weapons, and disappeared quickly back into the estate. It is challenging to balance the requirements and needs of the community to have a commemoration and to try and have a policing operation that enables us to respond.

“We weren’t on top of the commemoration event as it was happening, as you might imagine that in itself might create community tension.”

She also described the incident itself as “completely unacceptable”, before adding: “I understand we are in a post conflict society but there must absolutely be other ways to show respect. We want to work with communities to support events where people can show respect but we also need people to understand that any incident that brings police into contact with armed individuals can increase the risk to communities and members of the public.”

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