THE BARR TRIBUNAL: The chief Garda negotiator at the Abbeylara siege believed John Carthy could be suicidal after he challenged gardaí to "come in and get me", the Barr tribunal heard yesterday.
Det Insp Michael Jackson, who described himself as the "front-line negotiator" during the siege at Abbeylara, said Mr Carthy was "a man in crisis" and was behaving irrationally at times.
After Mr Carthy fired a shot at 11.45 p.m. on April 19th, 2000, Insp Jackson said he asked Mr Carthy to put down the gun. He replied: "No way, no way. Come on in and get me," according to the detective. "Implicit in John's remarks was a suggestion that we should come in and shoot him."
The detective told the tribunal he immediately thought Mr Carthy might be contemplating suicide and he asked him if this was the case. Mr Carthy did not reply.
He said his behaviour was extreme and self-destructive and fluctuated between being rational and very irrational. "Certainly his actions were not the actions of what I would call a rational man," he said.
Mr Carthy was going through intense emotions, including anger, fear and an accumulation of other feelings.
The detective said he told Mr Carthy that he knew he had been treated unfairly in the past by gardaí. "I said to him that this time it will be different and I told him that I would give him my word he would not be harmed," he told the tribunal.
The Barr tribunal is investigating the events surrounding the shooting dead of Mr Carthy by gardaí, after a 26-hour siege on April 20th, 2000.
On that afternoon, Mr Carthy fired some shots from the family home and refused to come out.
The Emergency Response Unit arrived at the house at about 9.50 p.m. and at 11 p.m. Insp Jackson began speaking to Mr Carthy through a megaphone. He could see Mr Carthy through the window but he did not reply to him. He was mumbling to himself and holding the gun so that it was pointing towards the ceiling.
About 20 minutes later, Mr Carthy replied, asking the detective who he was. On learning that he was a garda, he said "go away" and "f*** off". Insp Jackson said he was anxious to do "emotional labelling" whereby he identified the emotions Mr Carthy was feeling and responded to him in a way that showed he had been listening to him.
A "breakthrough of sorts" was made at 11.38 p.m. when Mr Carthy asked if the gardaí had got his solicitor. However, shortly afterwards, Mr Carthy fired a shot and Insp Jackson said he "distinctly heard the pellets whizzing over our heads" after he and Det Sgt Gerry Russell had ducked.
Insp Jackson's evidence continues today.
