Dissidents blamed for gang shooting
Dissident republicans are being blamed for the shooting of a 25-year-old man in Twinbrook.
Forensic teams have been examining the scene of the attack where the victim was shot five times at his home in the Summerhill Drive area on Tuesday night.
It happened after he opened the door to a gang of three masked men, one of whom was armed with a handgun. During the subsequent struggle, the victim was pushed to the ground and shot in both calves, the right thigh, right shoulder and left hand.
He was taken to hospital by ambulance, where he remains in a stable condition.
The Director of Community Restorative Justice, an organisation set up to try and prevent so-called punishment attacks, has described the shooting as brutal.
Jim Auld said: “To inflict five gunshots wounds to him in various parts of the body was clearly meant to inflict serious permanent damage to him and that is a terrible thing to have happened to anybody.”
Dissident republicans are being blamed for the shooting. Last year there were 61 paramilitary attacks – 20 of these were gun attacks. Two were carried out by loyalists – 18 by republicans.
Mr Auld continued: “I think that there are a number of groups in nationalist communities, some of whom are trying to create the space for themselves to be seen to dealing with crime and anti-social behaviour, to ingratiate themselves to the nationalist community and to be seen as the protectors of the nationalist community.”
A local MLA is concerned over the presence of gunmen in an area heavily populated by families.
Sinn Fein’s Jennifer McCann said: “There’s been several of these type of incidents that have happened in the local area over this past period of a few months and our concern is that somebody like a child is going to get caught up in that.”
Local community worker Annie Armstrong insists Tuesday night’s shooting will not stop the hard work that is being done to improve the area.
“It makes us even more determined and we will do more and we are doing more, we are doing a lot this coming month in October to help create a better image of the community and build the community spirit.” she said.
Parish priest Father John Murray says the community is revolted by the attack, having believed such dark days were over. He added that all offences should be dealt with through the legal system and not by gunmen.
A man arrested on Tuesday night and a woman arrested on Wednesday are still being held for questioning by detectives at Antrim Serious Crime Suite.
