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La RUC non è mai andata via

RUC ‘haven’t gone away you know’, says widow

Sean DownesACCORDING to the widow of another victim of RUC plastic bullets, the former police force “hasn’t gone away you know”.

Brenda Downes, whose husband Sean was killed after being shot during an anti-internment rally in 1984, said she would “never” trust the PSNI, and is convinced the mentality of the old RUC remains in today’s policing organisation. Upon learning that over half of PSNI officers in 2011 were RUC officers pre-2001, Brenda told the Andersonstown News that she would not even use the policing name created by Patten, and felt her attitude was reflected significantly in the wider West Belfast community.

Sean was just 22 and a father-of-one when he was shot at close range during the rally outside Connolly House, and the incident was captured on video footage subsequently broadcast across the globe. An RUC reservist was eventually cleared of manslaughter, causing uproar among nationalists.

“I don’t even call the police the PSNI, as to me they will always be the RUC,” Brenda said.

“They haven’t changed, and I’m basing this opinion on what I have witnessed and heard from the community. I know of incidents where people are still being harassed simply because they are Catholics or nationalists. They even target children in the street.

“One case I heard the police stopped local kids playing hurling in the street, claiming they had a report that youths were ‘waving sticks aggressively’. It’s a sport and part of their heritage, but this still seems to annoy police, and that’s the spirit of the bad old RUC lingering.

“It also makes me sick to think of the huge pay-offs the RUC members got, especially when people complain about the cost of something like the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, which focused on innocents, not people involved in an organisation like the RUC.”

An enraged Brenda added: “This is a slap in the face for families like mine. The RUC should have been completely disbanded, not just given a name change and a shiny new uniform. The fact that so many RUC officers are still working is a disgrace.

“I think it’s fair to say that they haven’t gone away you know.”

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René Querin

Di professione grafico e web designer, sono appassionato di trekking e innamorato dell'Irlanda e della sua storia. Insieme ad Andrea Varacalli ho creato e gestisco Les Enfants Terribles.

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