A member of the Garda Emergency Response Unit (ERU) who was shot during a raid at a criminal’s home has said “not a day goes by” when he does not think of colleagues who have been killed in the line of duty.
Sgt Paul McManus was at the back of a house that had been secured for a drug search when Charles Moore (48) fired a shot which struck him in his left forearm.
In his victim impact statement, read during Moore’s sentence hearing at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on Tuesday, Sgt McManus said he feels lucky to be alive given some of his colleagues have died on duty.
“There is not a day goes by when I don’t think of the families of those colleagues,” he said, adding that he did not know whether it was “luck” or “divine intervention” that caused Moore’s gun to jam that morning.
He said he “felt physically rocked to my very core” after hearing about the death of Garda Colm Horkan in Roscommon in June 2020 and said the news of his shooting “sent me to a very dark place”.
Sgt McManus said he continually feels “huge relief” and “huge guilt” following the incident.
Impact on children
Speaking of how the shooting affected his children, he said they were “uneasy in their own home” in the weeks after “because they thought the bad man would come to their own house”. He said he was sorry for bringing this into the lives of his children and wife.
Moore, of Barnwell Drive, Ballymun, had pleaded not guilty to possession of a semi-automatic pistol without a lawful purpose, possession of five rounds of ammunition without a lawful purpose, possession of a semi-automatic pistol with the intent to endanger life, possession of five rounds of ammunition with the intention to endanger life, the reckless discharge of a firearm and assaulting a garda at his home on December 7th, 2017.
He was convicted on all counts following a three-week trial last June. He has 18 previous convictions including one for possession of drugs for sale or supply and assault causing harm.
Judge Martin Nolan said Moore’s home had been attacked “by criminal elements” prior to December 2017 and he had procured the gun to defend himself.
Proper assessment
“Unfortunately, he seemed to have spent the night drinking and taking drugs so by the time gardaí arrived he was in no condition to make a proper assessment of the situation,” the judge said.
“In his drunken state he heard someone or became aware of some activity in the back garden. The gardaí were obvious, wearing the appropriate apparel,” he said.
If Moore had been in a position to properly assess the situation, he said, he would have realised it was armed gardaí at his home.
The judge said he accepted that Moore did not intend to shoot and injure a garda “but by reason of his intoxicated state he was in no position to make any such assessment”.
Judge Nolan sentenced Moore to nine years in prison for the offence of endangerment and took the other charges into account.