Barr Tribunal: A member of the Garda Emergency Response Unit told the Barr Tribunal that he discharged two shots at John Carthy who he believed was about to kill or injure people.
Garda Sgt Aidan McCabe, then a member of the ERU, said he believed it was his duty to save the lives of the people at the garda command post further down the road when Mr Carthy left his house.
Mr Carthy (27) was shot by Det Insp Michael Jackson, ERU, and Sgt McCabe on April 20th, 2000, after the 25-hour siege at a house in Abbeylara, Co Longford.
Sgt McCabe said he arrived at 1 p.m. on April 20th and he went to the house where Mr Carthy was to act as a cover for the negotiator.
He said when Mr Carthy left the house and was on the road he held the shotgun in front of him with his right hand over the trigger.
Sgt McCabe said Mr Carthy was moving in a purposeful and menacing manner and had the barrel of his gun pointed at the people at the command post.
"I believed John Carthy was about to pull the trigger and possibly kill or injure some of those people. I decided that in order to achieve my legal objective of saving the lives of those people, I prepared myself to discharge a shot from my firearm as I believed that all other means of stopping John Carthy from killing those people had been exhausted," Sgt McCabe said.
As he was about to discharge his firearm, he heard a shot coming from his left-hand side. He saw that Mr Carthy was hit in the left thigh.
"John Carthy continued to walk in the same manner as I've stated and took a number of steps," he said.
He then decided that to prevent Mr Carthy from killing people, he was going to have to discharge his firearm. "As I prepared to fire my Uzi sub-machine gun I heard a second shot discharged from the left-hand side," he said. "Having seen one shot hit him and heard a second and neither having any effect, I discharged my firearm and shot at the lower torso area."
Mr MacGrath asked if he saw any reaction in Mr Carthy when he fired his shot.
"On firing the shot, I lowered the gun slightly. I was surprised to see there was no reaction to the extent I thought I may have missed."
Mr Carthy was still walking after the shot with his gun pointing at the people at the command post. "I decided to discharge my firearm a second time," Sgt McCabe said.
"On the discharge of the second round, I saw John Carthy fall to the ground. He seemed to fall to his right," he said.