Female garda has lucky escape as man ‘pulls knife' on officers

Sunday World

8 hours ago

The man, who is originally from Dublin, was later charged in connection to the incident and appeared at a special court sitting in Longford the following day.
A female garda had a lucky escape when she was 'shouldered to the ground' and assaulted in a midlands village after a man officers had been searching for in connection to a criminal damage investigation 'pulled a knife' on gardaí.
The man, who is in his mid 40s, had been wanted by detectives over damage that had been caused to a car in the Market Square area of Longford town last Friday (June 20).
Those investigations had resulted in the speedy identification of the suspect.
Garda stock image.
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When officers called to the property in Ballinalee the following day, a struggle broke out as gardaí attempted to execute the man's arrest.
It was during those attempts that a female and well-respected garda was allegedly assaulted.
'He was later identified and on the Saturday they went to arrest him,' a source told the Irish Independent.
'He pulled a knife on the gardai (and) was arrested.'
Sources have confirmed the well-regarded officer was shouldered, causing her to fall to the ground where she is believed to have also sustained one or possibly more kicks into the body.
It's understood the knife involved was a 12 inch carving knife, which sources say was produced inside the property and not outside when the man was ultimately led away by arresting gardaí.
"He produced the knife and closed the door on them (officers) who managed to then handcuff and arrest him. While the knife was produced, the man didn't attack the two officers with it.'
The man, who is originally from Dublin, was later charged in connection to the incident and appeared at a special court sitting in Longford the following day.
The Irish Independent understands the young officer did not sustain any serious injuries and has remained on active frontline duty since.
He was subsequently refused bail and remanded in custody ahead of a further, scheduled court appearance on July 8.
Details surrounding the incident comes amid a heightened and renewed spotlight on the dangers facing rank and file gardaí.
Earlier this week, a garda suffered significant wounds to his fingers when he was stabbed in the hand after officers responded to a break-in at a pub in Blanchardstown on Wednesday evening.
That incident, together with its Longford equivalent has led to calls for greater resources to be deployed in order to assist already over-stretched gardaí on a daily basis.
"It's down to numbers and manpower, this is what it's about,' said Roscommon-Longford Garda Representative Association representative Keith Maher.
'There's not enough members and that's compromsing safety and you have to do the same amount (of work) with less people.'
Longford-Westmeath Fine Gael TD Micheál Carrigy, meanwhile, described the latest episodes involving assaults on gardaí as 'totally unacceptable' and ones which required a strong hand from the judiciary.
'Gardaí do an excellent job and anything like this is totally unacceptable,' he said.
"The strongest rigours of the law needs to be thrown at anyone in any attempts to assault gardaí carrying out their duty on behalf of citizens.'