Maskey calls for complete ban on plastic bullets

Sinn Féin’s Policing and Justice Spokesperson Alex Maskey MLA has today once again called for a complete ban on the use of plastic bullets. Mr Maskey, who sits on the Policing Board, made the call after a number of young people were injured during disturbances in the Broadway area.

Speaking this evening Mr Maskey said;

“Once again I am calling for a complete ban on plastic bullets, they are deadly weapons and are not an effective form of dealing with the violence we seen on the Donegal Road over a number of nights.

Since rubber bullets were first introduced in the early 1970s and then replaced by plastic bullets, seventeen people, 9 of them children and teenagers, have been killed by these lethal weapons.

Thousands more have been injured, many of them scarred and disabled for life.

In 2007, then Chief Constable Hugh Orde said that plastic bullets, “will not be used for the purposes of public order/crowd control”.

The fact that the PSNI weren’t even aware of how many people had been injured by plastic bullets during the disturbances simply highlights further the indiscriminate nature of these weapons.

I have contacted Chief Contstable Matt Baggott this afternoon highlighting Sinn Féin’s concerns and our total opposition to the use of these deadly weapons and will continue to work in the time ahead to ensure they are banned totally.”