Belfast police shooting: two more arrests made

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/23/belfast-police-shooting-two-more-arrests-made

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Two more men have been arrested in connection with the shooting of a police officer in Belfast by republican dissidents on Sunday night.

The pair, aged 30 and 39, were detained in Belfast on Monday evening as part of the investigation by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) into the murder attempt at a petrol station in the north of the city. Another man, aged 36, remains in custody after being arrested in Belfast late on Sunday night.

All three are being questioned about the wounding of a PSNI uniformed officer in the forecourt of the Edenderry garage on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast at about 7.30pm on Sunday evening. The officer who was hit several times in the arm by bullets fired from high-velocity rifle is said to be recovering well in Belfast’s Royal Victoria hospital.

Pictures emerged on Monday afternoon showing bullet holes in the windows of the customer service area inside the garage. Northern Ireland’s chief constable, George Hamilton, said the dissident republican group had sprayed the garage with automatic gunfire, endangering civilian staff and customers as well as the two police officers they were trying to kill.

Hamilton said up 10 shots were fired, adding: “This is an attack on the entire community, people walking from the forecourt to their cars with bullets whizzing round them and striking the garage forecourt – completely reckless.”

Sunday’s shooting happened not far from a junction on the Crumlin Road where the New IRA fired a homemade rocket at a passing police patrol last year. No one was killed or seriously hurt in that incident.

Mark Lindsay, the chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, which represents more than 90% of officers in the region, described the attack as appalling. “The police serve the entire community and wounding one individual is an attack on the entire community. This attempted murder underlines the fragility of our peace.”