Police operation following security alert ‘a farce’

AN INNISFREE Gardens resident caught up in Monday night’s security alert in Strabane has labelled the resulting police operation as a ‘bit of a farce’.

Gina Porter Devine spoke out after numerous houses in the estate were evacuated for several hours on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

At around 8:20pm yesterday evening, police and ammunition technical officers attended  Innisfree Gardens following the discovery of a suspicious object. Searches were carried out at a house and residents evacuated.

This was the latest incident to befall the town in a matter of days following Thursday night’s attack on police in Mount Carmel Heights, which led to a police operation taking place in the area for all of Thursday night and most of Friday. Further searches and arrests took place on Friday, as well as on Saturday.

“It’s all quiet now (Tuesday) thank God, but last night it was far from that,” Gina Porter Devine said. “The whole thing seemed very excessive. The house which was searched last night (Monday) had already been searched numerous times since the incident on Mount Carmel Heights on Thursday night. The police arrived around 8pm; unformed officers, marked and unmarked cars all swarmed to the house in question, and that was after a door-to-door leaflet drop earlier that day.

“I live quite close to the house and I, and a number of other residents, were out on the street watching what was going on. There didn’t seem to be any great emergency, but that changed within five minutes when everyone was told that we had to evacuate. I never left my house though.

“Elderly residents and families with children who had to go to school the next morning were greatly inconvenienced for nothing. I don’t know why they had to wait until night to check this out.  People were told to go to Fountain Street Community Centre, which had been opened for residents needing shelter, but that’s closer to the incident than their own houses – its madness. They cordoned off the whole place for nothing!”

The local lady concluded, “I would love to know the cost of that entire operation. It took the police a long time to back away from the house which, if a viable device was there, seems laughable. The operation wasn’t over until the early hours of Tuesday morning – how could the police not has figured out before then that the ‘object’ was harmless?”

Speaking after the operation a police spokesperson said, “The object has been declared as nothing untoward. A number of other items have been taken away for further examination.

“A number of properties were evacuated during the public safety operation, and residents affected have since been able to return to their homes. I want to thank the local community, in particular those who were directly affected, for their cooperation and assistance.”