GEORGE ‘SHOT TWICE IN THE BACK’
Family’s pathologist in Garda gun death report
Wounds’ direction indicate [George] was moving
PROF JACK CRANE PATHOLOGY REPORT
GEORGE Nkencho was shot twice in the back by armed gardai, a preliminary pathology report has found.
A pathologist hired by the family’s solicitor found one wound entered his lower back and exited his upper right chest.
Mr Nkencho’s State-conducted postmortem found he was shot six times with an interim cause of death believed to be two fatal gunshots to vital organs.
The 27-year-old died in the front garden of his family home in Clonee, West Dublin, at around 12.35pm on December 30.
Professor Jack Crane, the former State Pathologist for Northern Ireland, conducted a preliminary postmortem into Mr Nkencho’s death at Dublin City Mortuary.
According to sources close to the family, he noted that among the “five or six” wounds, “a small, neat entrance wound was on the left side of the back/left flank area”.
The professor added: “The track of this bullet was upwards and to the right, passing through the lower lobe of the left lung and the heart to emerge at an exit wound on the centre of the front of the upper chest.”
He records a second “probable entrance wound on the left side of the upper back, below the left shoulderblade. It would appear to have been a superficial wound, exiting from a wound in the left axila [armpit]”.
Prof Crane also found three wounds were to the chest with another to the left forearm.
He recorded wounds to the left lung, heart and liver and says “the wounds’ direction would tend to indicate that he [Mr Nkencho] was moving during the course of the shooting”.
Mr Nkencho, who suffered mental health problems, had been involved in an incident at a Spar shop in nearby Hartstown where he attacked a shop assistant while brandishing a knife. He was reported to local gardai who followed him as he carried the blade on his walk back to his house at Manorfields Drive. The Garda Armed Support Unit then attempted to restrain Mr Nkencho outside his home, using pepper spray and deploying Taser while his family were inside. He was fatally wounded by gardai, who fired at Mr Nkencho. Family solicitor Phelim O’neill has expressed “extreme concerns” at the pace of the investigation while welcoming it being given the status of a criminal investigation by the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission. The solicitor has asked GSOC to confirm how many officers were in attendance at the scene and how many shots in total were fired by gardai. An Garda Siochana said it cannot comment on matters subject to a GSOC investigation.