LEWIS was in shock, but didn't know it, The son of a friend of mine and 16 just before Christmas, he and a friend had been mugged by three attackers in Nassau Street, as dusk descended, and relieved of a £20 note each. Their muggers entertained forcing them to a nearby Pass machine to further the take, but were persuaded the account was empty.
They were threatened with an "AIDS syringe", and told to go nowhere near the Garda. There were others in their gang, they said, and they would be watching.
Lewis arrived home and his mother found out. Outraged, she rang Pearse Street Garda station to report the crime and was told that muggings could not be reported over the phone. They would have to arrive in person to report it. Or go to their local Garda station, and tell their story there.
Knot of Rage
The feeling, when I arrived at this point in the debate, was that of defeat. There was really no point in pursuing it further. Lewis was safe. Only £20 was missing, likely spent on heroin by now. The muggers would never be caught; it was something to be lived with, part of life as lived in Dublin 1997.
I was surprised at how angry I became. A tight knot of purest rage settled in my stomach and, on my insistence, we found ourselves talking to our local Garda station.
The desk garda was thorough in taking details. She was kind and patient. She got a clear description from Lewis of two of the muggers and all our phone numbers.
But I slept badly, rage still burning. How could anyone defend against a syringe attack? I imagined attackers everywhere. In the street. On the DART. On those awkward trains at night with not enough passengers as witnesses not that anyone ever looked up on the DART, in my experience. The third World War could be crashing away behind and no one ever would turn around, fearful of what they might see.
I thought longingly of a small calibre shooter - and the satisfying bang it would make as my imagined assailant toppled to the ground with a neat hole drilled between the eyes, the syringe falling safely to stick into the ground. I imagined a sturdy baseball bat and the wholesome crack a broken, syringe wielding forearm would make, followed by the splatter of a deft blow to the head, thwarting the intended assault to my complete satisfaction.
About dawn, the rage fevered brain came up with the perfect weapon. In my shoulder bag, along with a pliers and sturdy screwdriver (just doing a bit of electrical repairs, officer), I would stash a claw hammer. Stitch that, would be assassin.
Sound Advice
Exhausted by imagination and the still smouldering rage, I made my way to Pearse Street. After a short wait in reception, a garda listened to my concerns and spoke calmly, sanely. The mugging was considered a serious crime. The description of the assailants would be very useful, in conjunction with video camera coverage around the city. I should encourage the two victims to come in and make a formal statement to the desk sergeant as soon as possible.
I rang everyone concerned, and to my delight they said they would follow up the Pearse Street advice.
Lewis called to Pearse Street that evening, he was interviewed by a detective, no less, and shown mugshots of various ruffians, none of which were his muggers. But something had been done. The helpless feeling had mellowed. We were, somehow, no longer totally alone.
My hammer and weapon fantasy seemed repulsive now. Daylight and the calming influence of a blue uniform had evaporated the rage, which was really fear. Fear not just for Lewis and his friend, but for myself also.
It's one thing to be robbed, another entirely to be threatened with a lethal weapon. Helpless, like a complete eejit, meekly handing over anything demanded to the drug crazed one who knew only how to instil terror and feed his own need.
What I had lost sight of was that junkies, like bankers, insurance agents and solicitors, area people. They are under the control of a ferocious drug, compounded by a social nightmare and little hope.
No Joy
The Joy on RTE gave little comfort. What would jailing three junkie muggers achieve? They go in junkies and come out junkies. The system does not seem to work, and for junkies would never work.
So here's a suggestion, my own, offered as a discussion starter and perhaps misguided. Enlighten me otherwise if you will.
Provide, at taxpayers' expense, a secure clinic to which all junkies could be registered and admitted. Provide clean needles and pure heroin to the clients, only available on site. Back up the first aid with methadone, should any want to withdraw, but otherwise continue supply for life if need be. The clinic could screen for AIDS and hepatitis. When the heroin wave eventually subsided, the building could be used to care for the terminally sick.
Finance could be raised by legalising widely used cannabis, taxing it as heftily as tobacco and using the revenue to fund the clinic. Then the Garda could, having almost overnight lost a large percentage of Dublin street crime, concentrate on the rest, including the never mentioned menace of crack cocaine.
And perhaps some of the cannabis tax could be used to research a little into the dangers, both real and imagined, of ecstasy. Dublin used to be a nice city. Everyone agrees', but it is being drowned under a wave of heroin, which directly leads to crime to support the habit. Gardai are stretched trying to keep up and when they do, the addict remains, either in jail or back on the street. Time to grasp the nettle.