He was shot by police outside his home in Clonee while holding/threatening with a knife or machete. The police had followed him home after he had been involved in 2 incidents at Hartstown Shopping Centre, one of which resulted in a member of Eurospar staff going to hospital for his injuries.
Police first tried to subdue him with pepper spray, then with tasers, but neither worked and they finally resorted to live ammunition.
There have been protests overnight and today in the Blanchardstown area, outside the Garda station there as well as other sporadic stuff. Stuff like #justiceforgeorge, people taking a knee, and so on. Reports that staff at Eurospar being intimidated too.
The facts will all come out in the end I suppose, but this seems to be a pretty bad case to make the poster child for discrimination/racism. The Gardai seem to have followed procedure pretty well as far as I can see.
There are also suggestions he suffered from mental illness. That seems to be thrown in all the time these days. But even if true, it doesn't really impact on Gardai procedure when presented with the threat.
Shootings of this kind are so rare in Ireland (compared to some other countries...) that there a realistic expectation of a detailed investigation into what happened and whether the use of live ammunition was really necessary.
Regards racism, obviously some people here are attempting to tie it into #BlackLivesMatters. From my professional life, that involves working with lots and lots of non-nationals in an academic context, I can tell you (what you already probably know) that for a lot of them their perception of police is very negative on a lot of levels: a feeling that they don't get equitable treatment in comparison to white Irish, that any effort to contact Garda over a criminal problem they have will jeopardise their visa applications the next time they are made and, in fairness, a suspicion of any police based on lingering resentment to the often authoritarian police from their home countries. I outline this (very anecdotal) state of affairs to help explain why an incident such as what happens would engender anger, protests, etc. A lot of non-white citizens/non-nationals in this country are scared of our police.
As regards "mental illness", it's such a broad term that I feel it has a certain amount of uselessness in the context of a discussion like this. Lots of people have mental health issues. If it wasn't diagnosed professionally then it can't be considered a factor, unfortunately. And if it was, the question is more "What was done, or not done, about it?" and less "Should the Garda have treated him differently?"
The more useful question is why 12 Garda (and then additional ASU) felt the situation was so dire that shooting the man was the appropriate response. And I mean that genuinely: it's too easy to say "Oh, the better part of 20 guards should have been able to disarm one mentally ill guy without killing him". Someone opened fire for a reason, and I want to know what the reason was. Did they feel someones life was in imminent danger if they didn't? Is there really nothing between "taser" and "bullet" that could have been tried? The man was shot near his home, could his family have talked him down, and were they given the chance to try adequately? Is the graduated response good enough, now that we have seen it implemented with fatal result?
A proper investigation/inquiry should aim to answer all those questions and, yes, look into whether there was any possible racial aspect of what happened, and improve policing. That's not going to sooth the pain of his family of course. Nkencho's death is a tragedy and where-ever something went wrong that led to that moment it shouldn't have happened. But I don't really know what other response would be more helpful to society. Just because American police are a bit more trigger-happy with POC, doesn't neccesarily mean ours are.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Yeah, I don't think anything has come out to challenge that version of events alright, and I agree with the get-out clause of mental health issues. Is it confirmed he had a machete rather than a knife? A knife is a dangerous weapon, but a machete is a whole other level of pre-meditated scumbaggery.
In particular there's nothing to remotely suggest this was in any way racist. There's broad parallels with the Mark Hennessy case - the guy who was shot dead by Gardaí in the Jastine Valdez case two years ago. Both were being actively pursued by Gardaí for violent crimes, both ignored repeated Garda requests and instead directly attacked the Gardaí. It's an unfortunate last resort, but we've seen cases of Gardaí being killed on duty and I am more than happy to prioritise the safety of the gards over a wanted violent criminal.
I don't recall these protests when Hennessy was shot though. Really the only difference is that Hennessy was white and Nkencho was black. In that case, people protesting over the latter but not for the former are, and let's be quite open about this, racist.
It's unfortunate, but I suppose inevitable these days, that the blue-haired, pronoun-bearing, all-cops-are-*******s-but-racist-comments-will-be-blocked type on Twitter are having a field day over it. But the most concerning part is the number of high profile people buying into this narrative. Ruth Coppinger for example - "Extremely concerning that young man is killed, brandishing a knife but not armed otherwise". What a stupid comment. A knife is a lethal weapon. Plenty of TDs expressing condolences and concerns over Gardaí actions that I doubt were expressed at the time of the Hennessy case (Lynn Ruane has responded to critics by saying they can "Go ask me arse"). Black Lives Matter groups and UCD's Ebun Joseph (of "Ribena is racist" infamy) are trying to shoehorn racism into it too, which is actively divisive and unhelpful.
Then you have RTÉ, whose news report included comments from people apparently close to Nkencho saying "He wouldn't hurt a fly". The only way this is true is that it's hard to hit a fly with a machete or large knife. The Irish Times quote Nkencho's saying "My brother never bothered anybody", and various other comments along those lines, which again are completely at odds with a guy assaulting a shop worker with a large knife. Concern for the shop worker - who's in hospital after being punched in the face and attacked with a large knife - and the Garda who was attacked with a large knife in the course of doing his job is an afterthought.
I think this case calls for strong political leadership - someone to stand up and say that this was not racist, to outline established Garda protocol for dealing with potentially violent people, and to condemn the protests and the harrassment of Gardaí and people in the shop. Otherwise, you could have the loonies start to take over the asylum.
I don't see that strong leadership coming from anywhere though.
Is that not their problem though? You note that some of this stems from experiences in their home country for example, and certainly police in other countries are very different to here. That's definitely not an issue for the Gardaí. Some of it stems from "a feeling that they don't get equitable treatment" or "a feeling that it will jeopardise their visa applications" - anyone can have a negative feeling about something. Is it valid though? That's the kind of thing that can very easily be reinforced by selective media - ie you see negative news which reinforces your view, and don't see positive bits which would counter your view. The kind of algorithms social media news aggregators excel at...Originally Posted by NeverFeltBetter
To me, the above would be an argument against multi-culturalism than against the Gardaí. If people come to this country with such divergent views about something as basic as law authority - and I think people don't realise just how different other cultures can be over basic things like this - then there needs to be a rethink as to whether we should really be bringing these cultures into the country.
Well the guy had turned on a guard with the knife, hadn't he? If so, that's very much a case of your life being in imminent danger. Knives are lethal weapons, and a knife attack leaves you with really little time to react. There are videos on YouTube which show just how quickly you can get a fatal wound from an unexpected knife attack.
Don't mean to take over the thread, but it's a quiet time in a quiet sub-forum of a quiet forum I guess!
The various reactions to this will tell a lot about various people I think. (Me included I guess!) But here's a quote from a HotPress interview with Nkencho's brother yesterday -
To simply come along and with no evidence whatsoever blame the Irish people (a) for his friend's mental health issues (if they even exist) and (b) his failure to make it as a pro footballer (when in fact, black players are over-represented on recent U21 teams) is, for me, racism. Pure and simple.While the nature of the mental health issues George was dealing with are unclear, Israel reckons that years of witnessing and experiencing racial inequality, had caused his friend’s mental health to suffer badly.
The fact that Nkencho couldn't reach his dream of becoming a football player, Ibanu says, was at least in part because people of colour often have to work 'ten times harder' than native Irish players. Sometimes, he says, they exhaust themselves proving their worth to coaches and employers.
But I doubt there'll be many protests over that.
I agree with this. Even if turns out that there was a history of mental issues there, it's more a question of how that could have been dealt with earlier in his life, rather than how it could/should have impacted on Garda actions at the time.
For sure there will be an investigation that will ask these questions and more, but I'm not so sure there necessarily needs to be something that went wrong, some failing somewhere, on the part of the police.
As you mentioned, there will be people trying to turn this into something it's not, whether it's Ebun Joseph trying to make everything about race, or the overwrought wafflers on twitter, or even people trying to work in an immigration narrative.
But I don't see how people grasping at any straw at all to try and turn it into a race issue (which was obviously not possible with Hennessy), stupid and/or agenda-laden though their actions are, are racist. I don't see the argument there.
I don't see how the Hot Press quote is racism either tbh. It's somebody trying to come up with a narrative to explain Nkencho's mental state/mental collapse (if that even happened, as you say). I don't see how that is 'blaming the Irish people' as you put it.
Definitely, there is a current trend of people (opportunists) trying to frame things as racial - A was white and B was black, therefore what happened between A and B was because one was white and the other was black. I don't see that as racism in and of itself though, just a woeful argument. Maybe I am misunderstanding your point.
The football excuse is particularly silly I think, as if there's one field in which ability matters more than anything else, and it's not possible to hide a weakness, it's sport. If somebody makes it, it's because they're good enough. If they don't, they're not good enough.
Last edited by osarusan; 01/01/2021 at 4:00 PM.
I think there is far too much detailed information out there for people to draw hard and fast conclusions about what exactly happened and the relative justification or lack thereof, but I do find it interesting across the board how readily black people's feelings and opinions are being discounted and dismissed out of hand.
Well my point is that people - including media and public officials - appear to be reacting differently to the Hennessy and Nkencho cases purely based on the colour of the victim. There is no other substantial difference in the two cases. You can't protest or question a black guy being shot by the Gardaí and ignore a white guy being shot for the same thing. To me, that's racist. You're discriminating purely on skin colour. There's no victim of the racism as such, but it's racist nonetheless.
On the Hot Press quotes, maybe there's a bit more nuance than it than just racism alright. But how much difference is there between a football coach discriminating against black players, and a black player accusing a football coach of discriminating against black players (as the brother has done when he says that black players have to work ten times harder to get noticed)? To me, they're two sides of the same coin. If it's not open racism, then I think it's very comparable.
That's really too vague a comment for anyone to really reply to. Context/examples would be good? Do you mean my post (in which case I don't know why you're bringing race into it; I'd have said it about anyone who made those comments) or is it something else you're alluding to?
Last edited by pineapple stu; 01/01/2021 at 6:40 PM.
Should add a couple of news updates I suppose -
Nkencho's brother is claiming the knife was a butter knife (which doesn't fit in with what had previous been reported), and has been filmed leading a bit of a rally calling for the guard responsible to have his contract terminated, finishing by saying "When we get him..." to large cheers. There's been a spate of violence in the area in the past 24 hours, some of it racially motivated (particularly the predominantly black people blockading shoppers into a Spar and shouting "You ****ing white *******s") Some videos here. There were some protests called for by some of the loonier elements of Twitter (MERJ I think?) which seem to have been largely ignored, thankfully.
It all seems like it has the potential to get quite nasty, although the flip side is that objects in social media mirrors are often larger than they appear.
Well I said across the board as in across society. I know social media is only a snapshot but here and elsewhere I don't see very much discussion of why black people in Ireland are upset and why it might, to some extent, be a reaction that's not solely based on the exact circumstances of what happened yesterday.
I have zero interest in the guys colour, when i heard it reported first it was simply said guy assaulted shopkeeper and then attacked guards with knife and was shot dead.
Good riddance was my view when i didn't know what colour he was. My view hasn't changed.
I would have no problem listening to any complaints black people have but this isnt a cause they should be looking to make an issue of.
What about all the positive issues they could look to promote, number of non white players at under age football and athletics???
Black people are like white people , there are good people and scumbags represented in both
It’s a hard life to live in this country when you are from here & white. I have great empathy with people of colour as I say the ****e you put up with is awful. That being said this is a non story , black white or purple that individual seemed a right toerag. It shouldn’t have ended the way it did , **** unfortunately happens and I don’t envy the Garda that had to make that call.
If somebody is arguing (sincerely or disingenuously) that there is an issue with police/institutional discrimination towards non-whites in Ireland, why would they want to protest the Hennessy shooting? It has nothing to do with the argument they are making. I don't see that as racist at all, just that it doesn't offer an opportunity to make the argument.
Yeah, some public figures come out of this looking awful. Lynn Ruane and Paul Murphy in particular, but tbh, as my mother says, 'what else would you expect from a pig but a grunt'.
I think these days, likely as a result of the instantness of social media, people (including, or especially, public representatives) feel an unfortunate need to take a position, make a public statement, as soon as possible, well before all or even any facts are established. This isn't helped by people happily weaponising the fact that somebody hasn't immediately taken a position (along the lines of WHY IS VARADKAR SILENT ON THIS?, or WHY IS RTE NOT COVERING THIS?).
Hopefully people can just slow down and wait for facts to emerge and investigations to take place, and that people looking to stir shyte get as little traction as possible.
Yeah, as I said in my opening post, I think this is a very unsuitable incident behind which to try and further a cause.
Last edited by osarusan; 01/01/2021 at 11:07 PM.
OK, fair enough. Yeah, it's an interesting point. One possibility - and I'm just throwing this out for discussion; I don't know if it's the case or not - is that there aren't any overriding reasons for them to be upset, but shouting loudly is a good way of getting things. In that case, there probably isn't a huge amount of tangible evidence to cite for their upset. I don't think that morally, Ireland has any obligation to help those who simply rock up on our shores, or to take in migrants who choose to leave Africa or the Middle East (predominantly) for Ireland. I think mass migration is a very destabilising influence on parts of the world, and does more harm than good.
But leave that aside - if you get refugee status here (and I know not all black people here are refugees), then you're entitled to the same rights as anyone else, including free education, welfare payments, a medical card, social housing, training, etc. That's a pretty good deal.
Is there racism in Ireland? Sure there is. (On both sides, as the events in Hartstown yesterday showed) Is it sufficient to cause huge anger among the black communities? I don't see that's ever remotely been shown. Are they sold a vision of the American dream and then feel let down or even embarrassed if they end up unqualified for a lot of jobs, and end up on a minimum wage job somewhere? Welcome to real life, unfortunately.
But the problem is that if that bad things - like being arrested, or being unable to find a decent job - end up being ascribed to racism, then you potentially set in place a system where you start to see racism everywhere, even if it's not there.
As I say, that's a theory, not fact. But I think it should form part of the discussion.
Is it? I don't think it is. Of course everyone has a different experience, but if you compare it to most other countries, then life here is very comfortable. One of the highest life expectancies in the world. One of the highest levels of income in the world. You really only need to work for little more than half your life (ballpark, assuming you finish education by 21 and retire at 65). Freedom to travel pretty much anywhere in the world. Car ownership, internet access, phone access pretty much universal. No major environmental issues. Political stability. No particular suppression of media or beliefs, even the stupid ones. No domineering religion suggesting you should be killed if you leave the religion or have a child out of wedlock or if you wear this or drink that. Close to full employment, and welfare supports available while out of work. There's a lot of countries around the world where you won't find most of that.
Yes, there's issues - public transport/town planning is bad. High cost of housing and insurance, probably boosted by Government and vested interests (solicitors, builders, etc). And if you want to try keep up with the Joneses and have a new car/phone/TV all the time, then you might find you're not earning enough to do that and it might be a hit to the aul self-esteem.
But by and large, we have it very good here.
That's true. I just wonder if that is the argument that they're making, or if it's just a way of verbalising some inherent racism. If their starting point is "Black good, white bad" instead, then they would look at this case and jump to the conclusion that the case must be racist, because - well, black good, white bad. So it's the other way around to how you have it (which I acknowledge could well be the case). And certainly I agree with you that whichever way it's arisen, it's a bad argument.
Arguably, that's part of a growing general anti-white sentiment too - maybe it's a curious sort of internal success shame rather than reverse racism, but it's something. Leo Varadkar when he notes the Gardaí and the civil service are "too white" is being racist (and unhelpfully divisive too). People who complain about "pale stale males" (yes, I know it's mostly on the cesspit of Twitter...) are racist. I thought the reaction to the PSG - Istanbul abandonment in the Champions League last month was interesting; the entire focus was on the word Romanian word "negrul" being used even though Womé or Ba didn't know the context (John Barnes - who literally wrote the book on racism in English football - spent the evening on Twitter defending the linesmen, arguing that "the black one" was a perfectly valid and easy way of identifying the one black coach among seven), yet no-one discussed the issue that Womé was reportedly sent off for calling the linesman a "gypsy" all game. You can find a few more examples - Gary Neville's comments on the Cavani case were naval-gazing at its worst I thought, and Philip O'Connor (RTÉ correspondent in Sweden, when needed) is openly hypocritical on these matters. By and large they're small issues (so far). But I think it's there. It's why I think this is more an extension of that factor, rather than an independently-held view that there's institutionalised racism in the Garda ranks.
It's also why I dislike what the BLM campaign has become - taking the knee at football games is just daft for example (as Les Ferdinand pointed out three months ago). It just entrenches the idea of black people as oppressed and helps stifle critical debate on the matter. And there's a real inherent danger when one group in society becomes above criticism in a way, as seen in the Rochdale child grooming gang case in England, where for ten years police didn't properly investigate complaints, apparently for fear of being labeled racist.
(That post is a little bit all over the place actually! Apologies for that)
The latest update on this is from today's Sunday Times -
So this would invalidate earlier comments put about that he "wouldn't harm a fly" and similar. (I think all here are on the one side in regards the Garda actions, but I think it's an important snippet to add to the picture nonetheless)Officers say they had previously been called to deal with disturbances arising from his behaviour at the house in Manorfields. Members of the family had obtained protection orders against the young man on the basis that he posed a threat to their safety.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 03/01/2021 at 12:41 PM.
I saw that, it certainly casts doubt on some stuff that his brother said at least, and goes a long way to explain why the Gardai felt forced to shoot rather than let him enter the home.
It also came out that he has no convictions, rather than the 30+ that have been mentioned. A lot of agenda-laden misinformation out there from different sides.
It's just the same reasoning as why Pavee Point have no reason to comment on a particular event not involving a Traveller, it's just outside the sphere of what they care about.
On the rest of that paragraph, I'm not sure I would view it as people wanting to reduce things to 'black good, white bad', I'd rather say that people want to reduce it to a particular difference.
I said in an earlier post that for some people, everything is viewed through the lens of their particular agenda, be that race, gender, religion, disability). If A is different from B in some way (race, gender, religion, disability etc), and something happens between A and B, it must have happened because of that difference, which is an absurd reduction.
There's an element of that happening in this case - he was black and shot dead, therefore he was shot dead because he was black, which is utterly stupid, and the facts coming out make it even more so.
But it happens the other way round also - there was an assault in Carrigaline about 6 months ago, in which a black youth pretty brutally attacked a white youth and stabbed him with a broken bottle (for which he received a pathetic sentence a couple of weeks ago). The same argument was shoehorned in then - IT'S A RACIST ATTACK, FACT. Just because one was black and the other white. No other evidence needed or provided.
Thankfully, in that case, the family of the white victim quickly told the National Party morons (or the Irish Freedom Party, I forget which bunch of jokers it was) trying to shoehorn their agenda to f**k right off.
Last edited by osarusan; 03/01/2021 at 6:51 PM.
Well I think that's kind of my point.
This situation has absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with what a small but substantial part of our population feel about how society and the way they perceive themselves to be policed.
And you have brought up Ireland's responsibility for taking in migrants (irrelevant), mass migration generally (irrelevant), refugees (irrelevant) and refugee rights and entitlements (irrelevant). These are all things that you want to talk about but they have nothing to do why a community is grieving in this way.
I mean my first post was about how quickly the concerns of black people have been ignored and how few have actually listened to them. And you've provided a perfect example for... well I have no idea why you'd decided to make this all about mass migration.
No, I can't agree with that.
This is a societal issue, and any discussion shouldn't cut out a (large) section of society, otherwise you have potential for a clear imbalance in the discussion. I am part of society, therefore is absolutely has something to do with me.
So for example there's a video online (below) of a guy addressing a crowd (don't know what size; sounds small enough) in the Blanch area in this regard. He talks of there not being anyone in the Gardaí who looks like him (racist), of needing to own land (he can) and of Ireland being complicit in the slave trade because 100 people here (probably English actually) received compensation when slavery was abolished (irrelevant).
Nkencho's brother is quoted in the media saying pepper spray wasn't used and that a butter knife was carried (both at odds with all reports), that his brother had a "never bothered anybody, he just got on with his own life" (but the family had a restraining order on him) and "Didn’t really go outside, just to the shop and back" (but actually he had just returned from the UK). Protesters are quoted as saying "This is not the first time something like this has happened" - actually, it is - and "there are still one or two institutions that are [racist]" - which is a major claim thrown out with no back-up or evidence whatsoever. Community leaders are quoted as saying people are "very very angry", but again there's no attempt to explain why.
And there's other quotes out there (some on this thread already), none of which attempt to address the issue that a man - who cares what his colour is - swung a lethal weapon at the Gardai, having been warned a number of times to put the weapon down, and was treated exactly as others had been before him. None address subsequent actions such as the blockading of shoppers in Spar and the racist chants directed at them.
To be honest, I think one of the biggest disappointments here has been the lack of any coherent explanation for the anger, despite copious airtime to give one. So while I absolutely agree with you that it should be discussed, it's clear to me that such a discussion needs to be balanced, and needs to have the opportunity for arguments to be rejected and refuted. And hypothetically, if it ultimately turns out that, all things considered, there really isn't any reason for the anger after all, then that possibility needs to be considered.
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