{"id":288328,"date":"2026-01-16T23:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T23:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/288328\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T23:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T23:24:13","slug":"gardai-shut-down-mental-health-warnings-before-george-nkencho-was-shot-inquest-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/288328\/","title":{"rendered":"Garda\u00ed \u2018shut down\u2019 mental health warnings before George Nkencho was shot, inquest hears"},"content":{"rendered":"

A brother of George Nkencho has claimed efforts to explain to garda\u00ed that his brother had mental health issues were \u201cquickly shut down\u201d<\/strong> just before he was fatally wounded by armed officers outside their family home in west Dublin five years ago.<\/p>\n

Emmanuel Nkencho<\/strong> (25) told the inquest at Dublin District Coroner\u2019s Court on Friday that there was nothing unusual about his brother\u2019s behaviour earlier that day.<\/p>\n

Mr Nkencho also observed that he believed the knife that his brother had been carrying could have been taken from him in the confrontation with members of the Garda Armed Support Unit (ASU).<\/p>\n

His brother, George (27) sustained fatal gunshot wounds in the incident outside their home at Manorfields Drive, Clonee, Co Dublin, on December 30th, 2020 shortly after he had been involved in a disturbance at a nearby supermarket.<\/p>\n

The young man, the eldest of five siblings whose family originally came from Nigeria, was pronounced dead a short time later at Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown.<\/p>\n

The inquest had already heard evidence that Mr Nkencho had carried out an unprovoked assault on a manager at the Eurospar store in Hartstown as well as threatening staff with a knife, a short time before the fatal incident.<\/p>\n

The deceased\u2019s family claim the level of force used against him was disproportionate. However, the DPP directed that no prosecution should arise over the circumstances of Mr Nkencho\u2019s death following an investigation by Fiosr\u00fa (formerly known as the Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na Ombudsman Commission (GSOC)).<\/p>\n

Emmanuel gave evidence on the fourth day of the inquest that he had returned home for Christmas from studying at college in Bournemouth.<\/p>\n

Mr Nkencho said he was upstairs talking to his sister, Gloria, when they heard a commotion through the window and went downstairs with their sister, Grateful, to discover a large number of garda\u00ed outside their house with George in front of their door.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was shocked because I didn\u2019t know why they would want George,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n

Mr Nkencho said Gloria tried to explain to garda\u00ed that their brother was unwell, but they were told to \u201cget back\u201d into the house just before he saw his brother being shot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think that the garda\u00ed even carried guns,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He witnessed his brother being shot a second time after he had swung a knife at garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

Performing CPR<\/p>\n

As his sisters were screaming and crying, Mr Nkencho recalled: \u201cI didn\u2019t know what I was looking at. I then turned around because I didn\u2019t want to see any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then heard three more shots and looked to find his brother lying on the ground with his arms spread out, after which someone started performing CPR.<\/p>\n

The witness also recalled seeing smoke come from his brother\u2019s body and a stretcher covered in blood.<\/p>\n

Mr Nkencho said garda\u00ed refused to tell his family what had happened, even though they knew they were the deceased\u2019s siblings.<\/p>\n

He said he told four garda\u00ed who had gone into the house to leave after a few minutes, as he had not permitted them to be there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never witnessed anything like this in my life. I never witnessed anyone being shot in front of their house,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Mr Nkencho said he was unable to eat or sleep after what happened, and it was difficult to walk past the place where his brother was killed every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just see it playing over and over in my head,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n

Mr Nkencho said garda\u00ed knew his brother had mental health issues as they had previously called to the house about them, and he recognised one of the garda\u00ed from one of those visits \u201cwhen George had an episode.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it would not be normal for his brother to carry a knife with him.<\/p>\n

The inquest heard he discovered two holes in the hall window the following day.<\/p>\n

In reply to questions from his family\u2019s counsel, Eanna Molloy SC, Mr Nkencho said he believed garda\u00ed could hear what his sister was trying to tell them as she was speaking \u201cquite loud.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he claimed she was \u201cquickly shut down\u201d when she tried to explain about her brother\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n

Another brother of the deceased, Victor (21), outlined how he was at a nearby shop when he received a panic call from one of his sisters to get back home.<\/p>\n

‘Blurry scene’<\/p>\n

Mr Nkencho, who was aged 16 at the time, said he was \u201ctrembling and confused\u201d after returning to a \u201cblurry scene\u201d to discover his brother had been shot.<\/p>\n

He said there was \u201cnothing out of the ordinary\u201d when he saw George earlier that morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything seemed normal with George in the days leading up to the incident,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Earlier, video footage of the fatal shooting, which was captured by a member of the public out walking his dog in a nearby park, was shown to the jury.<\/p>\n

It recorded four shots being fired at Mr Nkencho at close distance in four seconds, with a fifth and final shot heard four seconds late,r after which he fell to the ground.<\/p>\n

The deceased\u2019s mother, Blessing Nkencho, sat quietly in the back row of the courtroom, wiping tears from her eyes with a handkerchief as she watched the footage of her son\u2019s final moments.<\/p>\n

Several of her children left the hearing temporarily as the video was played a number of times to the jury.<\/p>\n

Counsel for An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na, Ronan Kennedy SC, told the inquest that there would be evidence that a total of six shots were fired, with the video not capturing the first shot.<\/p>\n

He also pointed out that it did not record two attempts to taser Mr Nkencho before shots were fired by members of the ASU or the deployment of pepper spray.<\/p>\n

An eyewitness, Alan O\u2019Reilly, who recorded footage of the fatal incident, said he had been walking his dog when he noticed an ASU jeep come into the Manorfields estate.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Reilly said he could hear a lot of shouting, including someone calling out: \u201cGet down, get down.\u201d<\/p>\n

He admitted thinking originally that garda\u00ed were just shooting in the air and not at the deceased.<\/p>\n

Cross-examined by Mr Kennedy, the witness said he did not recall anything about tasers being used.<\/p>\n

He agreed with counsel that a lot of things had happened before he started filming the incident.<\/p>\n

In reply to a question from Mr Molloy, the witness said he could not be sure if Mr Nkencho had his back to the camera when one shot was fired.<\/p>\n

A postman working in the area who witnessed the standoff told the inquest that Mr Nkencho \u201clooked like a man in clear distress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Derek Keenan said the deceased did not obey any of the repeated instructions issued by garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

However, he observed that he was not sure that Mr Nkencho was \u201cin the right frame of mind to obey orders.\u201d<\/p>\n

The postman said the deceased was making very erratic and unpredictable movements, and he heard garda\u00ed issuing a warning about tasers.<\/p>\n

He recalled seeing Mr Nkencho staying on his feet after a taser had struck him on his side or stomach, which appeared to make him agitated.<\/p>\n

Mr Keenan said he believed that a garda also attempted to spray Mr Nkencho with something after he appeared to have fallen to the ground after a second taser had been used.<\/p>\n

He claimed Mr Nkencho and an armed garda were \u201cat touching distance.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Time<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

Time did not allow for negotiator at George Nkencho incident \u2013 inspector<\/p>\n

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

Another eyewitness, Ray Dunne, said the distance between them was probably two metres at most.<\/p>\n

Mr Dunne gave evidence that he believed there was \u201can excess\u201d of shouting by garda\u00ed at Mr Nkencho.<\/p>\n

The inquest before a jury of five women and four men was adjourned until next Tuesday.<\/p>\n

As part of a pilot project BreakingNews.ie has used AI to suggest headline options for this article. The final headline was chosen and edited by BreakingNews.ie journalists.\u00a0Find out more<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A brother of George Nkencho has claimed efforts to explain to garda\u00ed that his brother had mental health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288329,"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-288328","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\/115907360434242526","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288328","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=288328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}