'They would have shot anyone' Garda insider makes chilling claim about Regency hit
A senior officer who policed the Regency shooting says the hit squad that entered the hotel were prepared to shoot anyone who got in their way - even a Garda.Speaking exclusively to this paper’s crime podcast ‘Shattered Lives,’ Michael O’Sullivan, who headed the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau at the height of the Kinahan Hutch feud, said he has no doubt that the hit team had planned for such a dangerous scenario.Asked by us if he believed the armed Hutch hit squad that killed David Byrne would have shot a garda that day Mr O’Sullivan said: “They would have shot anyone who got in their way to go there. Would they have surrendered with Kalashinokovs? No.“So they had a plan and their plan was to exit through an apartment block and equally would have had the plan, I have no doubt, to retreat with force if police arrived. And who would arrive? Two detectives armed with two handguns. No competition to Kalashinokovs.“Certainly, it's a miracle, it was very unfortunate that one man died, but it’s a miracle that nobody else died there,” he said.Mr O’Sullivan, who was at the scene at the Regency, which took place 10 years ago this week, also revealed how prior to the incident, which changed gangland for good, gardai were crying out for resources on the ground. And he said he believed that the Hutch Organised Crime Gang, which carried out the audacious hit, took advantage of this.“So it was through that prism that they saw that and said yeah the chances are we will get away with it. If they were to do it now, you have new armed support units, you have more money gone into the guards from the perspective of more vehicles. You don’t necessarily have a lot more men. From that perspective you are at a greater danger of meeting an armed response unit in the city,” he said.Mr O’Sullivan also opened up about those frantic first 24 hours following the shooting - and how gardai feared that this attack could have only been Phase 1 of a larger plot.“It was quite chaotic and the big priority was, where have the group gone and where are the weapons and are they going to pop up somewhere else. You know not beyond the realms of possibility, is this the start and end of this operation? Have they gone on to do phase two of the operation. That was the priority at the time and the clock was tickling,” he said.Speaking to the complexity of the plot, the experienced Garda, who worked for over 40 years in the force, said it was extremely fortunate that there were not more fatalities that day.“Like if you have a group of guys armed with machine guns, they could turn up at a police station. They could turn up anywhere and do anything for a couple of minutes. They could wander down to the courts and do that. So when you consider they take hold of a place and be prepared, although it didn’t happen, to fight their corner if confronted with dreadful consequences if that happened, so when you see the likes of that happen, it was absolutely out of the ordinary.“Being there on the ground and realising, looking at the geography, looking at where the boxing weigh in took place and where the van was and comparing it with the video and looking at the scene in general, you realise it was very unfortunate and very tragic that one man had died. (But) you know, you wondered, with all that weaponry and all those people, how was there not more deaths?Speaking about arriving at the scene on the afternoon of the shooting, Mr O’Sullivan told how initially all that gardai had was eyewitness testimony - and what they were hearing wasn’t making any sense.“I made my way with the team I was with down to the Regency. I think it’s only when you see the video - you know you can get three or four accounts and very often at scenes you’ve people and they’re excited and they’re in panic. There was no garda source at the scene so it was all third party witnesses. Very often you get people who are anxious and distressed. When you see video and the men with guns and realise - one of the first things I thought was things will never be the same again.“This has broken the ceiling now. This is the way things are going to go and we’re going to have to up our game on a whole range of levels. That the criminals have absolutely upped their game and really to see the nerve of them to do that sort of stuff, it was a real eye opener. We knew from that moment on we were in a completely different league,” he said.He also told how gardai instantly knew that there would be a severe Kinahan backlash - and moved to warn dozens of people that their lives were in danger.“The next steps had to be there’s going to be a backlash here. You could not assume that those guys are gone with their guns and they’re not gonna come back. You don’t know where they’re going to be tomorrow morning. You had a team of guys running around with machine guns capable of doing anything anywhere and until somebody told you we have them arrested or we have the guns or they’ve gone to ground, they were out there and they could pop up as quickly as they disappeared.“You weren’t sure what their brief was and whether they had achieved their brief and whether they were going to go somewhere else and pop up the following Monday. They were out there and it was a race against time to find who they were and to try and neutralise them from the point of view of arresting them or apprehend them or at the same time put a plan in place for the backlash for the people we believe are going to be most affected by this,” he said.Mr O’Sullivan said he did believe that Daniel Kinahan - who narrowly escaped with his life at the Regency, was the main target - but others too were also in Hutch's line of sight. He also revealed how gardai knew from very early on who was responsible.“I would believe he was the main target and some of his associates, yes. Quite early on (we knew it was the Hutch gang) because you have the intelligence system which is quite good within An Garda Siochana and you would know the way criminals operate and the way they think and you would make an educated guess through your list of suspects of who could have done this and why could they do this and what are the most likely people to have done this.“People were saying it could be subversives or foreigners. You know you hear all this crazy stuff at the start but in the cold light of day you try to keep things simple and say who could have done this and had the logistics for this job. So you quite quickly realised who the chief suspects were.”You can watch or listen to our full podcast interview with Michael O’Sullivan by searching for the Shattered Lives Podcast on Youtube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.Watch our special Shattered Lives documentary on YouTube here or belowSubscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.
