Gardaí in Cork are searching for three youths who almost injured an elderly woman and caused extensive damage to a number of cars and property when they went on a random shooting spree in the county and city on Tuesday afternoon.
Detectives in Bandon in west Cork and Togher in Cork city believe the youths used some sort of air rifle or air pistol, though they are not ruling out the use of high-powered catapults to fire ball-bearing-like pellets at houses and cars.
One of the houses they targeted at Lehanamore, near Togher on the southern outskirts of Cork city, was occupied. An elderly woman had a lucky escape, having left her kitchen moments before the metal pellet came through the window.
Another house the gang targeted - on the Kinsale to Innishannon road in west Cork - was also occupied at the time.
While the occupants were not injured, they were somewhat shaken by the attack which broke the glass.
The gang also fired pellets at the Trident Hotel in Kinsale, at an unoccupied 4-wheel drive on the Bandon Road outside Kinsale, at two houses on the Kinsale to Innishannon road and at an unoccupied, parked schoolbus in Innishannon.
They fired pellets causing damage to an unoccupied car in Passage West, an unoccupied car in Crosshaven, an unoccupied car at the Five Mile Inn near Ballinhassig, the windows of Keary's garage on the South Link Road in Cork and at two houses in Lehanamore.
According to Insp Brendan Fogarty of Bandon Garda station, the attacks in Kinsale happened about 2pm while the attacks on the houses on the Kinsale to Innishannon road happened sometime between 2pm and 3pm.
Gardaí in Togher believe the attack on the car at the Five Mile Inn happened about 2.30pm, while the attack on Keary's garage happened shortly afterwards.
They also believe the Lehanamore attacks happened about the same time.
Garda technical experts have examined several of the scenes and they have recovered several of the pellets.
These have been sent for ballistics analysis in a bid to establish the kind of weapon from which they were fired.
Insp Fogarty appealed to anyone who may have witnessed a small, high-powered black car in Kinsale or Innishannon or on the roads around Cork city to contact gardaí in Bandon at 023-52200.
"We are treating this matter very seriously, someone could easily have been seriously hurt or worse if they had been hit by these pellets," he said. "The people behind these shootings seem to be totally reckless and to have no regard at all for the damage or injury they could cause."
