A police officer has been disciplined after firing two warning shots at a lorry driver who left his vehicle and was running away following an eight mile pursuit in south Armagh in September 2007. However, the Police Ombudsman concluded that another officer who fired a shot when the lorry driver had earlier appeared intent on running him down, had been justified in doing so.
Police first tried to stop the lorry - a 16-wheel tipper vehicle fully laden with stone - on the Barr Road near Belleeks shortly before 6pm on September 18, after noticing that its driver appeared too young to drive.
An officer stood in the middle of the road and signalled for the driver to stop, but the lorry increased speed and the officer was forced to jump out of its path.
Officers had to jump out of the way of the oncoming lorry.
Police units responded to radio transmissions about the pursuit and set up two further road-blocks ahead of the lorry. Two officers at these road-blocks also reported having to jump to safety. One said he had readied to fire a shot from his machine gun but did not have time to do so before diving for cover.
An officer did succeed in deploying a stinger device which punctured some of the lorry’s tyres. Officers recalled that the lorry then shed pieces of tyre onto the road, forcing one of the three police patrols who were pursuing it to stop so that officers could clear the road of debris.
When the lorry approached a fourth police roadblock, an officer said he was in a car when he saw the lorry heading directly towards him. He said he feared for his life and decided to get out of the vehicle and fire a single round from his personal protection weapon at the passenger side of the cab. He said his aim had been to force the driver to swerve, which was what happened.
As the pursuit continued, a police patrol managed to overtake the lorry, allowing officers to use another stinger device which caused further damage to its tyres. Officers recalled that as the lorry continued some of the tyres “completely disintegrated”, creating a shower of sparks as their rims struck the road.
Lorry stopped just short of a demolished bridge.
The lorry continued down a road towards the Forkhill River, crashing through barriers set up due to the demolition of a bridge, and stopped just short of the river.
The driver then got out of the lorry, waded to the other side and made off across fields pursued by an officer. The officer said he shouted a warning, and when this was ignored, he fired a warning shot into the ground behind the fleeing driver.
He then continued the chase but was losing ground, and after shouting another warning, he fired a second shot into the ground before giving up the chase.
The man made off but was arrested later that day and was subsequently convicted of a series of offences.
Having reviewed the evidence, Police Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire, said there was “compelling evidence” that the lorry had been driven in a dangerous and reckless manner.
He said there had been an imminent danger to the life of the officer who fired a shot as the lorry was being driven directly towards him, and concluded that in such circumstances the discharge of a warning shot was “reasonable, justified and proportionate.”
However, he found that the discharge of two warning shots at a fleeing man, in order to effect an arrest, did not meet the test of “serious and exceptional circumstances” in which the use of a firearm could be justified.
He recommended that the officer be disciplined, and this has since been implemented by the PSNI.