{"id":286841,"date":"2026-01-16T02:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/286841\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T02:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:57:09","slug":"time-did-not-allow-for-negotiator-at-george-nkencho-incident-inspector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/286841\/","title":{"rendered":"Time did not allow for negotiator at George Nkencho incident \u2013 inspector"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was no time to call a negotiator<\/strong> to the scene where George Nkencho was holding a knife,<\/strong> an inspector has said.<\/p>\n

A garda dispatcher<\/strong> explained how she shared information that Mr Nkencho had mental health issues<\/strong>, while a second dispatcher in charge of the deployment of armed gardai said he did not see the mental health information.<\/p>\n

Mr Nkencho, 27, died outside his home in west Dublin on December 30th, 2020, after being shot multiple times by members of a Garda armed support unit.<\/p>\n

An inquest into his death, which began this week at Dublin District Coroner\u2019s Court, heard from shop workers and customers who described seeing Mr Nkencho punch an assistant manager at a shop in Hartstown and members of the public who said they saw him holding a knife.<\/p>\n

Sergeant Deirdre Dempsey told the court that she was a Garda dispatcher at the time, while retired dispatcher Kenneth Kennedy was tasked with deploying armed response units.<\/p>\n

Ms Dempsey explained to the inquest how gardai were alerted to the incident in the shop.<\/p>\n

She said she liaised with local garda\u00ed to locate the man so they could keep sight of his whereabouts.<\/p>\n

She said she heard over the Garda radio that the man was known to Gardai and had mental health issues, but Mr Nkencho was not identified by name at the time by dispatchers or garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

\u201cA garda member informed me (the) male was known to Gardai and had mental health issues,\u201d Ms Dempsey said in her deposition read out to the inquest.<\/p>\n

She said she then \u201ctyped it up\u201d on the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system, but did not repeat it over the Tetra radio as all garda\u00ed deployed to the scene would have been listening to the garda say it over the channel.<\/p>\n

She said at 12.36pm, it was confirmed to the control centre that Mr Nkencho had been shot and was \u201cgravely ill\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Kennedy said that he did not assist in the armed gardai\u2019s tactical response, but part of his job was information gathering to inform their risk assessment at a scene.<\/p>\n

Mr Kennedy said an armed response unit, with two armed officers, was initially sent to the scene, with a second unit of two armed officers also deployed.<\/p>\n

Asked why four armed officers were sent to respond to \u201ca pedestrian with a knife\u201d, Mr Kennedy said \u201che was mobile\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he went into a house, you could have a hostage incident so it was best to send a second unit to be safe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Kennedy was also asked about an entry made on the CAD system by Ms Dempsey at 12.26pm that day, where she said the suspect had mental health problems, and was asked why his deposition was \u201centirely silent on that\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I didn\u2019t see it, and I didn\u2019t give it out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said he was typing \u201cunit updated\u201d when the comment came in, but he did not see it.<\/p>\n

He said if someone at the scene had requested a negotiator they would have been dispatched, adding that \u201cno one requested an on-scene commander\u201d.<\/p>\n

He was asked by the coroner, Dr Myra Cullinane: \u201cHad you gathered there were mental health issues, you\u2019d seen it on the screen?\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he had not seen it on the screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you did not know there were mental health issues?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo\u2026 but the units on the ground did, because they were (told over the Garda radio system).\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he also did not know at the time where Mr Nkencho lived or that he was standing in his front garden.<\/p>\n

Mr Kennedy was told by the barrister for Mr Nkencho\u2019s family that the last information he had was that Mr Nkencho was in an open space, in a grassy area, and in a public space.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou only found out after the event that he was in this confined space in the front garden,\u201d he was told by the barrister.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never knew about that,\u201d Mr Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no information that he was in a front garden.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspector Gerard Doherty told the inquest he was the senior ranking officer at the control room that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trusting the experience of the dispatchers, as that is their role, and I think for me to interject at any stage could be detrimental to the management of the operation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Counsel for Mr Nkencho\u2019s family said: \u201cWasn\u2019t this scene at Manorfields Drive crying out for an intermediary, male or female, who was unarmed or a trained negotiator?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTime was probably not allowing that,\u201d Mr Doherty responded.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

Man showed body of dead ex-girlfriend to best friends on FaceTime call, trial hears<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unclear where this individual was travelling to, the identity wasn\u2019t known at that time, so it was constantly moving and evolving, so time was probably not permitted there to develop it down that way. That\u2019s my understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou make it sound like haste was the best policy, is that right?\u201d the barrister said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is not correct,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was no time to call a negotiator to the scene where George Nkencho was holding a knife,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-286841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115902535657164336","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}