State Violence (23 page)

Scene of shooting of Michael McCartan

Michael rejoined his companions and started writing the word ‘Provos' on the wall beneath the hoarding, which is on the gable of a row of houses on the Ormeau Road, between the waste ground and Dromora Street. The three other lads were standing beside the tall lamp. It is sixteen yards from the lamp post to the paint daubing. There are numerous lamps on the bridge and on the river banks which throw such good light that the boys could even see the cards when under the bridge. The three lads then saw a dark green van coming out of the Stranmillis Embankment, the road directly opposite the waste ground. It halted at the main road. There were two policemen in plain clothes in it. This van was well-known to the inhabitants of the district as a police vehicle. Certainly it was known to these lads. Some of them had been stopped several times by it and questioned by the occupants (not necessarily the same men as the night of 23 July). Some were arrested by plain clothes police the previous year from a similar van and were brought to Donegall Pass RUC Station. They were not charged with any offence. After passing, the van turned left down the Ormeau Road. The boys told Michael to put the paint down, ‘It's the Peelers'. He set down the tin and brush and walked over to them. Michael then went back to the painting. The other lads stayed beside the lamp. The van went down the road but they did not know where it went. They did not watch it very long. Then they saw the van coming up the road. It turned down Dromara Street. The lads told Michael to put the paint away, but he kept on painting. He was now painting ‘Provos' on the hoarding. Maybe he did not believe them, or just stubbornly kept on painting to finish the word. The van went to the bottom of Dromara Street and turned right on to the waste ground which used to be part of Kinallen Street; there are no houses there. Kinallen Street is now waste and runs from the bottom of Artana Street, past the bottom of Dromara Street towards the river. The lads went to the bottom of Dromara Street and they could see the back of the van jutting out at the bottom of the street. They went back and told Michael the ‘Peelers' were there. Michael would not be able to see the van from where he was at the hoarding. They left him walking down the concrete strip they called an ‘entry' on the waste ground running at the back of Dromara Street. It is flanked by the back yards' wall of Dromara Street houses, in which are the back doors into the yards. It is forty yards from the ‘paint' hoarding to where Michael's body lay at one of the back doors. It would seem that he was shot from the corner of Kinallen and this concrete strip, a distance of thirty yards. Before Michael headed down the ‘entry', he ran towards the nook of the card players, stopped, looked towards them, and then ran back to the waste ground.

One policeman had left the van and walked eighteen yards to this corner. He then shot Michael coming walking down the strip with tin and brush in his hand. Michael seems to have staggered, dropping the tin. There are three white splashes of paint over a few yards. Then he fell at one of the back doors (where people saw a spot of blood), half-way down the ‘entry' or concrete strip. Just before the shot was fired, the other policeman reversed the van. The boys were watching the van from the top of Dromara Street at this time. Just as it was coming up the street, they heard the shot. The other three lads, still under the bridge, heard the shot also but disputed among themselves as to whether it was a shot or the backfiring of a vehicle. They remained on playing cards for about fifteen minutes. None of the six lads heard a ‘halt' call or a challenge. An experiment carried out by the Association for Legal Justice with Fr Murray showed that a challenge call would be heard under the bridge where the card players were, despite traffic, from the point where the shot was fired, or where the body lay, or at the cutting near the top of Dromara Street.

The policeman who fired the shot joined his companion who had stopped the van at the top of Dromara Street at the entry of the cutting running back into the waste factory ground. Mrs Kelly who lives in 2 Dromara Street had seen the van going down the street between 10.20 and 10.30pm. She went into the kitchen and came back into the front room again. She saw the two men in the van; the policeman who fired the shot had rejoined his companion. She then saw one of them get out and go up the entry (cutting) opposite her house. He came straight back again and spoke to the man who had remained in the van. The other man went up the entry (cutting) and the first fellow went up the street towards the Ormeau Road again. Mrs Kelly was suspicious of the strangers and feared they might be planting a bomb. She went back to the kitchen to get her key and walking stick, intending to go out and phone the police. When she got back to the front door, the police and army had just arrived and the ambulance came a short time later.

When the three lads at the top of Dromara Street heard the shot, they ran down to the Burger Man Chippie at the top of Farnham Street, two or three streets down and stood outside it. The three under the bridge emerged some fifteen minutes after the shot. They had their names taken by the British army. They heard Michael was shot but only knew the next day that he had died. The police give the time of the shooting as 10.33pm. This would fit in with the evidence.

The commotion in Dromara Street soon brought neighbours to the doors. Mrs Jessie Ross learned the news from her ten-year-old daughter who came into the house. She came out and spoke to a policeman. She saw the ambulance men with the stretcher and knew the boy on the stretcher to be Michael McCartan. She found out from a policeman that a priest had not been called nor had the police informed the parents. She phoned Fr Newberry who arrived on the scene and later went to the Royal Victoria Hospital. At first everybody thought Michael was wounded but not too bad. He died at 1.30am on Thursday morning 24 July.

Seán came home from America on Friday. Fr Newberry and the father went to meet him coming off the coach to break the news. It was a sad homecoming for him. He was carrying his presents for Michael, records and a shirt. Seán was in the United States with a party of Catholic and Protestant school children on a four-week trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, organised by Ulster Project.

Subsequent to the above account the
Belfast Telegraph
of 10, 15, 16, 19 June 1981 reported the trial of Constable Robert McKeown for the murder of Michael McCartan. It was stated that he was attached to the RUC dog handling section based at Stormont. It was detailed at the trial that the youth was shot at 10.30pm on 23 July and died at 1.15am on 24 July 1980. Crown counsel said a high velocity bullet would make a hole in clothing at the entry point, but not necessarily at the exit point; the only hole in Michael McCartan's clothes was at the back. The bullet was never found. The crown case was that the youth was therefore shot in the back and could not have been in a posture which would have made the RUC officer think he had a gun. A doctor and surgeon gave evidence that they believed he was shot in front, while a forensic scientist told the hearing he believed the bullet entered his body through his back. The scientist said he found the bullet entrance hole in the lower left side, and at the back, of the youth's blue denim jacket. He said, ‘In my view there is no possibility of this being other than the entrance hole. The bullet residue indicates that the bullet travelled into the body from the back'. He added that there were corresponding holes in the back of the youth's shirt and red T-shirt and that there was no other bullet hole in his clothing. The accused McKeown claimed he thought the paint brush the youth was holding was a gun and that he opened fire to defend himself, believing he was about to be attacked. The other RUC officer, who was in the van with McKeown when they stopped, said that they had been alerted to keep watch for two armed and masked men travelling in a car, reportedly spotted in the Markets area. He said he did not see the actual shooting but heard McKeown shout a warning ‘Stop! Police!' before he fired a single shot.

On 16 June an RUC detective-Chief Inspector read McKeown's statement in court, ‘When I got to the corner of the wall I drew my Walther pistol and held it to my side. I was facing a situation I never faced before. I saw a youth whom I recognised as the one I had seen pick up a parcel a few moments earlier. He moved hurriedly past me. I shouted to him ‘Police! Stop!' He started to run. I again shouted and he turned towards me'. McKeown said he thought the paint brush was a gun and that the youth was going to shoot him. ‘I immediately fired my gun once and he fell to the ground. He was conscious and I asked him where the gun was but he made no reply.' No gun was found. It was stated that McKeown was about ten yards from the youth when he shot him. On 19 the
Belfast Telegraph
reported the acquittal of Constable Robert McKeown. The judge, Lord Justice Jones, said the killing was ‘a bona fide mistake' and that the RUC man's belief that the paint brush was a gun was reasonable. Judge Jones said, ‘He acted under an honest and reasonable belief that a terrorist was going to shoot him from close range. He had little time to think'. He accepted McKeown's statement that he had shouted a warning. He accepted that Michael McCartan was shot in the back and that ‘that does not contradict the accused's account and I see how this happened as the men turned to face each other'. During his judgement he said, ‘Some people may question how a paint brush could be mistaken for a gun. But I think you have to consider the setting. It was a night of some tension and the light was poor.'

Taken from my account in the pamphlet
  
Michael Mccartan
(1980).

On 9 July 1981 Danny Barrett, aged 15 years, of Havana Court, Ardoyne, Belfast, was shot dead by the British army about 9.30pm.

On the afternoon of 9 July his friend, George McErlean, aged 16, called for Danny at his home in Havana Court. They went over to the Pool Hut at the bottom of Brompton Park between 6.30pm and 7.00pm and came back about 7.15pm. They called for a few minutes at Joseph Brown's house at Havana Court. He was watching ‘Top of the Pops' so they left and came to Danny's house. There they watched ‘Top of the Pops' until about 8pm. They went out and met the rest of their friends at Brompton. There had been a Black Flag March, not an uncommon thing during the Hunger Strike at H Blocks, and there was a crowd there. They did not stand around so they went to the club at Herbert Street to go to the disco. There were four or five of them. There was no crowd at the disco so Danny, George, and Kevin Mullen returned to Danny's house. There was rioting down at the waste ground beside Holy Cross School. They watched and then heard a couple of shots. They went back to Danny's house.

James Barrett, Danny's father, recounts that, despite some rioting at the bottom of Brompton Park, all was quiet at Havana Court. Havana Court is a small square of newly-built red brick houses. There is a main entrance from Flax Street. The high building tower of Ewart's Mill, on top of which is a British army camera and sentry post visible to the eye, dominates the area and gives a clear visionary line right down the little front gardens of the row of houses where Danny lived. These small front gardens are surrounded by low brick walls about two feet high. A number of plastic bullets were fired at the rioters who were mainly children. The children threw stones; then ran to retrieve the plastic bullets. James Barrett also heard a number of shots fired but did not know from where or from whom. The shooting, he thought, seemed to come from the direction of Brompton Park. When Danny heard the first shots, he rushed into the house along with the other children. There was a short lull and Danny walked out to the front again and James went with him. James stood at the door. Danny sat on the low wall at right angles to the house and was facing towards Flax Street. George McErlean was standing in the hall of Danny's house. Joseph Foster, aged 16, had been at the Pool Hut and had come over to Havana Court by himself. He sat down on the wall beside Danny. Kevin Mullen was standing further down the path to the house. Gerry Ferguson was standing between James Barrett and Danny. Then there was a further number of shots. Joe Foster said to Danny, ‘Get down!' Danny said, ‘Ach, it's all right'. Then there was a single shot and Danny fell back over the wall. James saw Danny fall back over the wall. He thought at first Danny had thrown himself back to get down for cover. Gerry Ferguson got up. James looked over the wall and saw his son lying bleeding. He thought he had hit his head when he fell over. He jumped over the wall and saw he was losing a lot of blood. He knew then Danny had been shot. He was unconscious and appeared to be dead. He said an Act of Contrition in his ear and held him in his arms. He took off his shirt and tried to stem the flow of blood. An ambulance was called.