Derry's Drug Vigilantes
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NEWS FEATURE DERRY’S DRUG VIGILANTES Ray Coyle was gunned down as he chatted to customers at his city centre shop in Derry. His crime? Selling legal highs. Max Daly reports on how dissident Republican groups are using the region’s historical distrust of drug dealers to drum up support in Northern Ireland’s still-fractured working class communities. IT WAS afternoon rush hour in the from within the local community”, had can buy legal highs over the internet, so centre of Derry, Northern Ireland’s claimed responsibility for the attack. are they going to start shooting postmen second city. Office workers hurried home The Red Star shooting, on January for delivering it?” through the bitter January cold. Inside 27 this year, marked an escalation in RAAD responded by saying Coyle and Red Star, a ‘head shop’ selling cannabis an already rising wave of attacks by other legal high sellers in the city had paraphernalia, hippy trinkets and dissident Republican paramilitary groups been warned, through leaflets handed exotically named legal highs, shopkeeper on drug dealers in Derry. out in pubs and personal visits to shops, Ray Coyle was chatting to customers But the attack on Coyle, which came to desist in “the hope moral thinking when a man wearing a motorcycle in the wake of a dramatic rise in reports would prevail”. Coyle denied he had been helmet barged through the door. of Derry teenagers being harmed by the warned by anyone. What is for certain is “Are you Raymond Coyle?” he now banned legal high mephedrone, was that RAAD published a statement in the demanded through his visor. Scared, the first time someone had been targeted Derry Journal in December ordering head Coyle blurted out a false name, but for selling legal highs rather than heroin shop owners to remove all legal highs within a second the man had placed a and cocaine. and drugs paraphernalia by Christmas. handgun into his right thigh and fired. The incident sparked a protest, Coyle is one of at least 15 victims of Then he pumped a bullet into Coyle’s left organised by left wing groups, outside paramilitary style shootings carried out leg. As the gunman opened the door to Red Star. A Facebook page, RAAD – Not In by RAAD in the space of 20 months. In leave, Coyle, lying bleeding on the floor Our Name, said the group were “fascists”, addition to the shootings, RAAD has of his shop, swore at him. The man came “sickos” and “self-appointed heroes of also claimed responsibility for a wave back in and fired a third shot into his the community” who should not be of threats, banishments, beatings, pipe legs. allowed to claim any moral authority. bomb attacks and arson attacks against Coyle was rushed to hospital and Outgoing Foyle MP Mark Durkan alleged drug dealers and their families underwent emergency surgery. Within described the shooting as “barbaric” and since it began its campaign of violence days, a burnt out motorbike was found said RAAD had “no support” in the city. last April. on the outskirts of Derry and Republican “What are they going to do next?” The attacks have led police to ask Action Against Drugs (RAAD), a Derry- Coyle said in an interview for the BBC judges to withhold the names of all based group which has vowed to current affairs programme, Spotlight after drug suspects who appear in Derry’s “remove the scourge of drug dealing leaving hospital in a wheelchair. “You courts – because the gunmen were 6 | DRUGLINK MAY/JUNE 2010 finding potential targets by sifting spared because they came through court reports in the press. In one forward to admit their guilt. example, three men were charged with The targeting of drug possessing cocaine on a Monday and on dealers by paramilitaries in the following Friday night, two of them Northern Ireland is nothing were shot. new. Although dealers in RAAD’s activity comes alongside a Northern Ireland had for resurgence of anti-drug dealer shootings several years, up until last by a number of dissident Republican year, been able to operate groups in both Northern Ireland and with little fear of getting across the border in the Republic. The shot, RAAD is seen as a Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) copycat of a group that claimed responsibility for the murder terrorised drug dealers in of alleged Derry cocaine dealer Jim Northern Ireland over a McConnell at his home in the Waterside decade ago. area of the city in February last year. Barely a year after The Real IRA admitted executing Gerard the IRA announced a ‘Topper’ Staunton in Cork in January, ceasefire in 1994, a group as well as one of its own members, calling itself Direct Action 31-yearold Kieran Doherty in February. Against Drugs (DAAD) Doherty was abducted, stripped, shot now widely known to be in the head and dumped in a field after a front for the Provisional a Real IRA ‘court martial’ decided he IRA – assassinated its first was linked to a large cannabis factory victim, drug dealer Mickey uncovered by police in County Donegal. “Moneybags” Mooney Hundreds of people attended a trade in a Belfast pub in 1995. union-organised rally in protest against Then followed a rash rivals, in Derry and the killing. of drug dealer beatings, Belfast – cities with significantly lower In its latest report last November, the banishments and 15 killings culminating rates of recreational and problem drug Independent Monitoring Commission in the killing of Paul ‘King Coke’ Daly use than most parts of the UK – they (IMC), the body responsible for in front of his wife and 11-year-old are more likely to be killed, kneecapped monitoring paramilitary activity, warned daughter in 2002. or bombed by vigilantes on a moral of the “growth of vigilante organisations Now, it appears, the ghost of DAAD crusade. which claim to want to clean-up has returned. Indeed, it is widely known What is it that makes drug dealers anti-social behaviour”. The report said on the streets of Derry that RAAD, which suitable targets for dissident Republican these groups – which also included has around a dozen active members, is groups looking to garner support from Belfast’s Concerned Families Against headed-up by two former Provisional IRA the community? And how much backing Drugs (CFAD), were “a factor behind the figures. However the group says it has no do they have within the predominantly increase in the number of attacks in political agenda. working class communities in which this some nationalist areas”. unofficial war against dealers is played “Our objectives are very simple,” out? revealed the leadership of RAAD in IF THEY ARE MOVED ON “In general no-one, be they dissident an interview last August in the Derry WITH A BASEBALL BAT, or any other group, will lose any Journal. “We are determined to rid the support for shooting drug dealers,” local community of these individuals. THEN I’M NOT GOING TO says Eamonn MacDermott, a Derry- We view them as career criminals whose SHED ANY CROCODILE based journalist and former Republican activities have ruined the lives of so prisoner. “After a shooting you will get many young people in the past and we’re TEARS ABOUT IT, AND the usual politicians trotting out the not prepared to tolerate that any longer. THAT IS THE SAME FOR usual condemnations, but little real “We have been involved in several condemnation from ordinary people. operations, with active service units MOST PEOPLE IN THIS Within communities here drug dealers punishing those we know are involved COMMUNITY would be seen as pretty low on the grand in dealing drugs to vulnerable members scheme of things.” of the community in Derry. Other One Derry-based drug worker, who dealers have been told to leave the Despite the widespread distrust towards did not want to be identified because city and never return – or suffer the drug dealers in towns and cities across dealers who have been threatened by consequences.” the UK – fuelled by a wealth of made- the paramilitaries sometimes come In March the paper featured on its up scare stories about them courtesy to him for help, told Druglink that front page an Al-Quaeda style image of a of the media and politicians – it is hard Northern Ireland’s attitude to drugs and blindfolded father and son being paraded for outsiders to understand why, in drug dealers is influenced by a healthy by masked RAAD members. The father Northern Ireland, they are chased down dose of Catholic and Presbyterian and son, caught during what RAAD and maimed like foxes during hunting fundamentalism. called “a major intelligence gathering season. “RAAD is vying with other groups to exercise”, had admitted being involved While drug dealers in Manchester and kneecap dealers. Even across religious in a cocaine dealing operation but were Nottingham are gunned down by their borders, the fact that drugs are immoral MAY/JUNE 2010 DRUGLINK | 7 UPSURGE IN VIOLENCE AT least 15 people have been shot Star where he was selling so-called the ground before shooting him in the and wounded by the dissident ‘legal highs’. left leg. group Republican Action Against November 24, 2009: A pipe bomb September 9, 2009: A man is shot Drugs (RAAD) in Derry in the past detonated at the front of a terraced five times, sustaining wounds to both 20 months. Below are some of the house in Glengallaigh Park, blowing legs when he is shot at a house at incidents that police are investigating out the living room windows and Drumard Park. and which have been either claimed damaging a car.