Republican News · Thursday 31 January 2002

US Consul and NYPD Deputy Chief visit Newry

Sinn Féin's Davy Hyland, Chairperson Newry & Mourne District Council, hosted a reception in the Arts Centre, Newry on Monday 10 June to welcome US Consul Barbara Stevenson and Jim McShane, Deputy Chief New York Police Department.

McShane's father was born in the Creggan area of south Armagh in 1901.

Afterwards, Councillor Hyland lead a delegation of Sinn Féin councillors and members of the South Armagh Farmers Committee to meet privately with the consul and McShane. They explained to them that the brutal behaviour of the PSNI in the south Armagh area especially was sapping the confidence of local people and impacting on support for the peace process.

"It has been most interesting and very informative to listen to Mr McShane's own personal experiences of community policing in dealing with the many thousands of people from different ethnic backgrounds who live in the city of New York," said Hyland after the meeting. "It is indeed unfortunate that here in the Six Counties we still have not yet succeeded in achieving an acceptable policing service to which everyone can give their full and whole-hearted support. The full implementation of the Patten report would have helped hugely to make this possible.

"In recent months the PSNI, here in south Armagh and throughout the North, have been involved in early morning house raids - smashing down doors in nationalist areas and attacking people in their own homes. The PSNI still stand idly by whilst masked loyalists parade the streets and attack nationalist areas such as the Short Strand in East Belfast, which is under constant siege, by day and night.

"We have given photographic evidence and personal reports of PSNI brutality against local people from south Armagh in recent months to the US Consul and to Mr McShane. They have promised they will investigate these incidents. A resolution to the problem of policing can only be reached through the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and politics being made to work at ground level."

At a meeting of Newry & Mourne District Council on Wednesday 5 June, Sinn Féin called on the British Secretary of State to meet with victims of PSNI brutality.