Barr TribunalThe chief Garda negotiator at the Abbeylara siege denied at the Barr tribunal that he panicked when he saw John Carthy leave the house and shot him as he did not know what else to do.
Det Insp Michael Jackson, then of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU), said he shot Carthy twice in the legs when he was on the roadway at 5.45 p.m. on April 20th, 2000.
He was being cross-examined by Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, for the Carthy family. Det Insp Jackson said they did not want to initiate an unnecessary confrontation when Carthy left the house with his shotgun. He emerged onto the driveway with the gun broken and they asked him to lay it down.
When he walked onto the roadway, he had the gun closed, so it was more dangerous. Carthy then broke the gun open and took out one of the two cartridges and closed it again. He had the gun pointed at the command post. He fired at his legs. Mr O'Higgins put it to him that he just wanted to "wing him" as he did not really believe Carthy was a threat or he would have shot him in his vital organs. "The decision was to fire at John's leg in order to minimise injury to John and achieve the objective of stopping him," Det Insp Jackson said. Mr O'Higgins said he shot him twice, then there was a third shot from another garda which struck Carthy in the lower back. Mr O'Higgins put it to him: "The reason John Carthy was shot was that the ERU, whether through tiredness or lack of foresight, was wholly unprepared to deal with what happened."
Det Insp Jackson replied: "I don't accept that. I think the facts display otherwise in relation to our reactions to Mr Carthy when he emerged. We attempted to give John a real opportunity to lay the weapon down.
"It was only when the immediate threat arose, the threat that existed, a live threat, that action had to be taken so they're the circumstances under which unfortunately Mr Carthy was fatally wounded." It was about 25 seconds from the time Carthy emerged from the house to the time of the first shot, he said.
Mr O'Higgins said: "John Carthy was shot because in 25 seconds of the ERU being aware that he was out of the house, he was walking towards an area where there were unarmed people, he had his back to you and you shot him because you just didn't have any other ideas of what to do. You panicked."
Det Insp Jackson replied: "I don't accept that, Mr chairman. Certainly, any officer would only use his firearm as a last resort and only under particular prevailing circumstances."
He said the gun was pointed at the people in the command post as Carthy was advancing up the road. Carthy had also fired shots previously. People were in immediate danger and it was on that basis that he fired.
The chairman said if Carthy had kept walking he would have passed the command post. He was not walking into it.
"It was not in his way. He had shown no interest in other gardaí, yourself included, he didn't threaten anybody, he's walking up, why would you think he was threatening people at the command vehicle?" he asked.
Det Insp Jackson said he could only make an assessment of Carthy having the weapon pointed in that direction. The chairman asked: "If he had the intention in mind to shoot or cause injury, would you not have expected him to walk in the direction of the command post and not diagonally up the road in the direction he was going?"
Det Insp Jackson said: "If he had pulled the trigger, he would have been capable of killing or injuring somebody. As he progressed he brought more people into the line of fire."