A US expert told the Barr tribunal yesterday he found it frightening that there was no appreciation of the danger gardaí were in at Abbeylara. He said he had and warned that this could lead to officers' deaths unless there was change.
Mr Frederick Lanceley, a siege and crisis-negotiation expert, formerly of the FBI, studied documents on the Abbeylara siege in Co Longford in which Mr John Carthy was fatally shot in April 2000.
While giving his evidence on the report he wrote for the tribunal, he stopped and said he wanted to get something off his chest.
"I must say, throughout this case and others I'm aware of in Ireland, I find, and it greatly concerns me, a lack of appreciation for the level of danger these officers are in," he said. "There does not seem to be an appreciation of the danger they were in.
"I find it frightening on behalf of the Garda. I'm afraid that some of the gentlemen \ at the back of this room are going to die unless some changes are made. I find that frightening, absolutely frightening," Mr Lanceley said.
When he and his wife had looked at reports of the siege, they had both had the same reaction.
"That reaction was that Irish people don't seem to care very much about the lives of their police officers. They're just asking much too much of them," he said.
That was an impression Americans got when they read about this case.
"I don't think that's a correct impression," Mr Lanceley went on.
"I think what's going on here is, the persons asking questions [at the tribunal\] and even the gardaí presenting evidence, there's just no appreciation of how close they came to being killed."
Mr Lanceley said members of the Emergency Response Unit,Garda officers surrounding the house and civilians trying to negotiate presented themselves as a target.
On at least six occasions, Mr Carthy had fired at the negotiating position.
"When he fired, it gave him a blast of adrenalin and was "self-enraging".
"I would have much preferred not to give Mr Carthy a target. I don't believe Mr Carthy wanted to kill anybody.
"He was certainly having a good time, self-enraging with his shots," he said.
"In that situation, you have a case where someone is suicidal and then [an officer)\] ends up killing them. That doesn't go down well with the public and that doesn't go down well with me," he said.