OLDEST IRISH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN USA, ESTABLISHED IN 1928
Category: Archive

McDowell looks to U.S. for crime solution

February 17, 2011

By Staff Reporter

It will have Dublin police working thousands of hours on overtime using intelligence and surveillance to try and stop the elevated number of gangland-style robberies and murders.
The minister and the Garda Commissioner, Noel Conroy, will travel to the U.S. this weekend to get advice from the chiefs of police of several major American cities, as part of their effort in Operation Anvil.
The minister and the commissioner will seek answers from U.S. officials who have considerable experience in dealing with gun violence.
The U.S. has the highest rate of gun fatalities in the industrialized world. Approximately 80 people are shot and killed each day.
“There has been a lot of concern about gang murders in Ireland,” said a spokesperson for McDowell.
“There have been 10 killings in eight weeks and we want to view how resources are used and how U.S. police forces organize themselves,” the spokesperson added.
The trip’s program was put together just last week. McDowell and Conroy will also meet with the U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, a Texan and close personal adviser to President George W. Bush. Irish officials are also seeking for a meeting with the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff.
They will also meet with the chiefs of police for the cities of Boston and New York.
“The U.S. is known as the great gun bazaar to the world,” said a gun control lobbyist Eric Howard of the Brady Center of Gun Violence based in Washington, D.C.
“I’m not sure I would look to the U.S. to find answers on how to deal with guns,” he said.
He did concede that the major metropolitan cities in the U.S., such as Boston and New York, have made strides in recent years in reducing gun-related homicides.
However, success in New York and Boston, said Howard, could be doomed. He said that changes to Federal-gun control laws that are being considered just this week that could undermine the strict hand-gun rules implemented by such states as New York and Massachusetts.
During his trip, McDowell will also travel to Williamsburg, Va., to meet with Bush’s special envoy, Dr. Mitchell Reiss, to discuss Northern Ireland.

Other Articles You Might Like

Sign up to our Daily Newsletter

Click to access the login or register cheese