An off-duty police officer has been shot by gunmen outside his son's school in Northern Ireland today.
Jim Doherty (43) was hit in the face, arm and back when he was blasted with a shotgun as he pulled away in his car after dropping off the teenager.
But even though he was bleeding heavily, he still managed to drive through heavy traffic in Derry to reach a station where he was given first aid treatment. His condition in hospital tonight after surgery was described as "comfortable".
Dissident republicans opposed to the peace process were blamed for the attack on the father of two, a Catholic, which shocked all sides in Belfast as well as British and Irish ministers.
Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness, a former IRA leader in the city and now Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive, claimed the attack was a deliberate attempt to plunge the community back into conflict.
The Mid Ulster MP said: "The war is over and it is time these people woke up to that reality."
Constable Doherty, a former security officer who at one time lived with his wife Bina and two children in the fiercely republican Bogside district of the city, had been one of the growing number of Catholics joining the once Protestant-dominated police service.
Two men, one armed with a shotgun, waited for him until he was pulling away from the footpath close to Lumen Christi College and two primary schools. Hundreds of children and parents were in the area at the time. The gunman fired once through the rear of the officer's car before running off.
But even though shocked and bleeding badly, he still managed to keep control and drive for five minutes through heavy rush-hour traffic to Strand Road police station where he was treated.
He later walked to an ambulance and was taken to hospital where he underwent surgery to remove shotgun pellets. He became a police officer two years ago and had been based in Omagh, Co Tyrone.
Since a new recruitment policy was introduced in a bid to attract more Catholics into policing the streets as a key element of the peace process, Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde and his senior officers always feared a strike against one of the policing team
Dissident republicans belonging to the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA have been involved in a series of attacks on homes and property belonging to Catholic members of the district policing partnership boards all over Northern Ireland, but this was the first time any of his officers have been hit.
The ambush happened just six months after the formation of the executive at Stormont and on the 20th anniversary of one of the IRA's worst atrocities, the Remembrance Day bombing at Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, when 11 people were killed at the town's cenotaph.
The last time the IRA shot dead a police officer was in June 1997 when two patrolmen were ambushed in Lurgan, Co Armagh.
Since the introduction of the new 50-50 recruitment policy in November 2001, the number of Catholics joining up has more than doubled from just under 10 per cent to over 23 per cent — the equivalent of 1,720 officers. Catholics applying to sign up has also risen dramatically to 44 per cent.