LOCALS IN the Neilstown area were in shock last night following a shooting, which left two men dead and a teenager in hospital.
“I think he took a lift from the two men in the car and was shot up to three times in the arm,” said a neighbour of the injured boy.
“He loved horses and probably took a lift from the stables,” said the man, who has lived in the area for 28 years. “The two older men who were shot in the car are well known to the Garda,” he added.
The shooting took place just a few hundred metres away from the Neilstown shopping centre where teenagers gather at the chip shop and Chinese take away.
Scores of children who gathered close to the crime scene last night said they knew the teenager, who was shot. “I was friends with him at school,” said one boy on a bicycle. “I think they took him to hospital,” he said
Garda sealed off the area and began a preliminary examination of the scene following what local people believe was a gangland style shooting, which occurred shortly after 8pm.
Local people said the boy was being treated at Tallaght hospital.
“I was sitting here working when I heard people running, lots of sirens coming and then a helicopter. I didn’t hear the shots,” said a woman serving at the Food House Chinese take-away at the Neilstown shopping centre.
One lady who was taking her dog for a walk said she had been living in the neighbourhood for about 10 years and it was usually pretty quiet.
“People I spoke to say the boy in the back of the car was shot in the arm, possibly three times . . . it’s terrible,” she added.
Local people, who did not want to give their names, said the two men shot in the car were brothers from the Ballyfermot area of west Dublin. They said they thought they had been shot by a hitman.
One woman who lived a few hundred metres from the shooting said she heard the commotion and came out to see what had happened. She said she did not hear the shots but was told that two men were shot dead in the car.
“This isn’t a very rough area. I haven’t heard of a shooting in this area before,” she said.