Ireland’s police chief Drew Harris has said that rioting in Dublin in the aftermath of stabbings outside a school caused huge destruction and has led to thirty-four arrests.
Violence flared on Thursday after three children and a teacher were injured in a knife attack in the city centre and Harris said 11 police vehicles and 13 shops were badly damaged during the clashes with several of his officers injured in the riot.
On Friday morning Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said there had been an “element of radicalisation” to the riot.
But under questioning from reporters on Friday morning, he denied that his force had failed to protect Dubliners and their city from the violence.
“We could not have anticipated that in response to a terrible crime – the stabbing of school children and their teacher – that this would be the response,” he said.
“Those filled with hate, and the hate directed towards members of An Garda Síochána, that they would attempt to storm through a cordon and disrupt a crime scene and then engage in violence, looting, and disorder.”
Thirty-two people are due to appear in court in Dublin this morning.
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