Chief Inspector Alan Hutton condemns those who stoned police while tending to four year old girl struck by car in Derry
A SENIOR PSNI officer has condemned youths who attacked police with stones in Derry while investigating a car crash that left a young girl in hospital.
The incident happened at 1.15 pm on Sunday in the Magowan Park area of the city.
A four-year-old girl is being treated at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital following the collision.
Officers who attended the scene were attacked by a gang of youths, police said, denouncing what they described as “wanton and reckless behaviour”.
It was one of a number incidents in which emergency services were attacked in the city over the weekend, added the PSNI.
Chief Inspector Alan Hutton said police vehicles were also attacked when attending calls in the Cromore Gardens and Cable Street areas of Derry.
“How would you feel if your four-year-old sister was hurt as the result of a road traffic collision and the emergency services were hampered from carrying out their duties because you thought it was ok to throw missiles at them?
“Or how would you feel if your mother or father or grandparents needed the emergency services and they were prevented from attending their call for help because again they had come under attack?”
He said the Fire and Rescue Service vehicles and the city’s community safety wardens were also attacked in separate incidents in the city.
Mr Hutton urged the young people involved to try to understand “the extent to which their behaviour can have an adverse effect on the quality of life for the people affected by it”.
Local Sinn Fein ouncillor Kevin Campbell has said that the four-year-old child ‘is very ill’ after the incident.
He also appealed to young people in the area to allow police at the scene to carry out their investigations after stones were thrown at officers.
Councillor Campbell said “I was shocked to get a call on Sunday afternoon to say that a young child had been knocked down in a traffic accident in the Magowan Park area of Cregggan .
“The child was taken to a hospital in Belfast and at this time our thoughts and prayers are with the child’s family.
“It is very worrying that during a follow up investigation into the accident the PSNI were attacked by a group of young people throwing stones.
“This caused disruption in the area not to mention a hindrance to the police investigation.
“I would make an appeal to parents that during such times that they make it their business to find out if their children are getting caught up in these stone throwing incidents.
“Even during the worst days of the conflict people in the community always let the police go about their job of investigation such serious incidents unhindered.”
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