GARDAÍ BELIEVE a gun attack in south Dublin in which a man was shot five times before his 17-year-old son tackled the gunmen is linked to a rivalry in the door-to-door collection of second-hand clothes.
The injured man, a 38 year old from Lithuania, was wounded in the upper body, neck and chin, but is expected to survive.
Gardaí investigating the shooting are following a definite line of inquiry.
They arrested a man in his 40s in west Dublin at lunchtime yesterday. A Lithuanian national, he is being held under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act at Blackrock Garda station.
Gardaí believe the gunmen involved were forced to abandon their own car at the scene after the injured man’s son attacked the vehicle, smashing its windows.
The boy was being driven to school by his father when the gunmen struck.
The attack is the second incident in which a foreign national has been shot here because of his involvement in organised door-to-door second-hand clothes collections for charity, or for export to eastern Europe.
Yesterday’s attack occurred just before 8.30am as the victim and his son were driving out of the Aiken’s Village development near Stepaside, where the family lives in an apartment in the Grianan Fidh area.
As they made their way out of the development in their Mercedes, a grey Ford Mondeo pulled across the road, blocking their way. Two men got out of the Mondeo, at least one of whom was armed with a handgun.
Garda sources said the gunman ran to the driver’s window of the Mercedes and fired at least five shots at the victim using a semi-automatic pistol. The victim’s son was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car but was not wounded.
The attackers ran back to their own car but were chased by the wounded man’s son, who appears then to have broken the windows of the attackers’ car.
The gunman and his accomplice abandoned the Mondeo, which gardaí believe was not a stolen vehicle. They ran into the adjacent Sandyford Hall estate and on towards Kilgobbin Road and Murphystown Road.
Gardaí believe they were most likely picked up by a taxi or by an accomplice in another vehicle.
The emergency services were immediately alerted and the wounded man and his son were taken for treatment to St Vincent’s hospital. The boy is believed to have sustained an injury to his arm as he attempted to frustrate the escape of the attackers.
Officers have appealed for anybody who witnessed the incident, who saw the attackers fleeing the scene on foot or may have seen anybody loitering in the Aiken’s Village development in recent days to contact them at Blackrock Garda station.
The shooting appears to have been planned and carried out by people who knew the victim’s address and his usual movements in bringing his son to school in the mornings.
The wounded man is married and has two children. He has been living in Dublin with his family for a number of years.
Gardaí believe the victim has worked in the second-hand clothes collection sector, where bags are distributed to households asking that any unwanted used clothes be left in the bags outside the houses for collection on a specified date.
In many similar operations, the clothes are exported for sale abroad, mostly to eastern Europe. The trade in Dublin has proven lucrative in recent years and has been marked by clashes between some of those involved in the collections.
Last March a man was shot and wounded in the leg and arm in the Maryfield Wood estate in Artane, north Dublin, by rivals who wanted to stop him collecting second-hand clothes in the area.
Gardaí are hopeful the wounded man and his injured son will be in a position to identify their attackers when they are well enough to be interviewed.
Garda sources said they were trying to establish whether the second man involved in the incident also had a gun. While a number of witnesses saw the men in the area there was no clear description of them available from the eyewitnesses.
The victim’s car and the car used by the gunman and his accomplice have been removed for analysis by members of the Garda Technical Bureau.
Garda sources said the case is unusual in that the gunman and his accomplice did not appear to have used a stolen car for the attack.