A security alert in the Galliagh area is centred round a silver-coloured car parked adjacent to a house in Ederowen Park which the police have visited on a number of occasions during the search for murder suspect Kieran McLaughlin.
Mobile bomb disposal units examine the car at the centre of the security alert in Ederowen Park. Photo: Lorcan Doherty Photography
The alert follows the arrest of the 58-year-old at nearby Fern Park in the early hours of this morning.
Around 30 families have been moved from their homes. The nearby St Joseph’s Community Playgroup has been advised to close and parents arriving with their children were told to take them home again.
A number of homes have also been evacuated in Moss Park, also in the Galliagh area.
Bomb disposal personnel are at both scenes where mobile bomb disposal units have been deployed.
A section of Fern Park, where McLaughlin was found hiding behind a car in a driveway of a house at shortly 3.00am, is also sealed off.
Police said McLaughlin was armed when he was detained. No shots were fired and no one was injured during the arrest operation. Police believe McLaughlin may have had another weapon and said they were now looking for that firearm.
McLaughlin was spotted earlier in the night driving a silver car just across the border in Donegal and hunted by Gardai. PSNI officers took over the chase when he crossed the border.
After stealing another car McLaughlin was traced to Fern Park where he was arrested by specially trained PSNI firearms officers.
He was taken to the PSNI’s serious crime suite in Antrim for questioning.
McLaughlin, from the Galliagh area, had been on the run since the murder of 35-year-old Barry McCrory in Derry on Thursday last.
Mr McCrory, a father of a nine-year-old boy, was shot dead by a lone gunman in flat in Shipquay Street. Following an extensive search in the Galliagh area on the night of the shooting, police took the unusual step of releasing a photograph and releasing the name of McLaughlin as the man they wanted to speak to in relation to the killing.
Over 100 police officers were involved in the hunt for the former INLA member and appeals were made by his family and the police to turn himself in.
Tags:
