{"id":469754,"date":"2026-05-05T16:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T16:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/469754\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T16:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T16:07:11","slug":"officers-hurt-and-vehicles-damaged-as-psni-attacked-at-belfast-car-event-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/469754\/","title":{"rendered":"Officers hurt and vehicles damaged as PSNI attacked at Belfast car event \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A large number of people attacked police with missiles during a car event in west <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/belfast\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/belfast\/\">Belfast<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/police-service-of-northern-ireland-psni\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/police-service-of-northern-ireland-psni\/\">Police Service of Northern Ireland<\/a> (PSNI) has said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Two police officers were injured and five vehicles damaged in the incident on Monday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Fire service personnel were also attacked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The PSNI said it was made aware of the event on the Stewartstown Road.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Footage on social media showed cars driving erratically with crowds of people gathered in the Colin area on Monday evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A PSNI statement said: \u201cOfficers were in attendance from around 7.30pm and noted cars and scrambler bikes gathered in the area, some of which were engaging in dangerous driving.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cResources from across Belfast, and a tactical support group unit which had been on deployment in another district, were dispatched to the area.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The statement added: \u201cA large number of people with faces covered emerged from the crowd and began to throw masonry and other projectiles at police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cA fire was started and colleagues from Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service were attacked when they tried to respond, leading to their withdrawal from the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cFive police vehicles were damaged and two officers sustained injury.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"> PSNI west Belfast district commander Chief Inspector Kelly Gibson said police acknowledged \u201clocal concern\u201d around the incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She said police would \u201ccontinue to engage with representatives and residents in order to help prevent further instances of this behaviour\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The officer added: \u201cThose who choose to get involved in this type of disorder are causing destruction within their own community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cTheir actions impact on their own families, friends and neighbours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThere is also a wider societal issue to highlight, and we would particularly ask parents and guardians to speak to their children, and make sure that they do not become involved in something which could lead to someone getting seriously hurt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThankfully, the injured officers were able to remain on duty, although the damaged police vehicles will be off the road until they can be repaired.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She said that police inquiries into the incident were continuing and said there would be arrests. \u2013 PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A large number of people attacked police with missiles during a car event in west Belfast, the Police&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[663,9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,952,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-469754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-belfast","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-police-service-of-northern-ireland-psni","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-world","23":"tag-world-news","24":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116522834080723127","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469754","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=469754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}