What happens if there are 4 people acting the maggot and breaking the law on the way home from the pub and the gardai are called. What if they are going past a person on the path with no connection to them when the Gardai arrive. In all probability, he will be arrested and charged with their behaviour.
Murt,
I understand tyhe point you are trying to make, but that's not the situation here. I was not asking for arrests based only on my word. I was asking for a bit of investigation.
had the Gardai detained the guys at the scene and ten taken a look at the cars that had been vandalised they would have found very clear foot prints on the bonnets of the cars. One of the cars had 3 different sets of foot prints.
I'll bet you all the money in my bank account (About €160 less than I had thanks to this incident) that the foot prints would have matched the shoes that the guys were wearing.
All I ask is that crimes be investigated before a decision not to arrest is made.
The Gardai are so under resourced right now that the are operating permanently in Crisis Mode. They only came to the scene when they heard we were confronting the guys.
Their intention was clearly to take names, make sure there were no injuries then get on with breaking up the next fight. They do'nt have time for all that hanging around investigating, making arrests etc.
They only made any arrests at all because the guys were too stupid to leave when they had the all clear on the windscreen breaking, they continued being aggressive and eventually assaulted a garda.
The family down the road who's car was also attacked spent all day yesterday at home waiting for Gardai to arrive to look at their car.
About 10 hours under effective house arrest on a beautiful summers day.
The gardai finally arrived last night.
I gave up ringing and had to go to Rathfarnam to ask about how I complain to the Garda Complaints Board before I eventually got gardai to come and look at the foot prints on my car.
I know in my heart that the prints taken will never form any part of an investigation or prosecution, it was done to make me happy, and hopefully head off a complaint.
I don't blame the gardai entirely. It is not acceptable that they have to function permanently in crisis mode. Our gardai operate in the way I would expect them top work in the middle of a terrorist attack.
No time to deal with your situation, nobody was hurt, keep the chin up.
Right now all I want is some sort of official acknowledgement from the state that these crimes don't get investigated beyond taking names due to a shortage of resources.
-Rd