There was a feeling of shock and disgust in Omagh on Thursday morning after senior PSNI officer John Caldwell was gunned down as he packed his car alongside his young son at a sports centre.
The shooting, which has left DCI Caldwell in a critical but stable condition in hospital, has sent shockwaves through the local community in the county town of Tyrone.
Three men have been arrested in Omagh and Coalisland in connection with the attempted murder of the senior officer. Local residents expressed their disgust at the attempted murder on the streets of Omagh on Thursday.
READ MORE: DCI John Caldwell: Three men arrested on suspicion of attempted murder of PSNI officer
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was killed in the 1998 Omagh bombing, said he knows DCI Caldwell personally and described the attack on him as ‘horrendous’.
“It is just horrendous to hear of what happened to John Caldwell last night,” Michael said.
"We cannot allow murder or attempted murder to return to our town again.We had hoped people had moved on and come to an agreement to put guns and bombs beyond use
“Here we have sadly seen police officer Ronan Kerr murdered and to hear of more attacks on officers is just horrendous.
“Our children have a right to live without bombs and bullets and those behind this offer nothing to this town.”
With dozens of young children in the vicinity of where the shooting took place at Omagh Youthsport on Wednesday, Omagh resident and local businessman Barry Brown said a new generation of young people will be scarred by what has happened.
“For this to take place in this day and age in Omagh, twenty five years after the ceasefire is disgusting,” he said.
“There is no popular support or any support for this type of incident. It’s insane that these people are still operating.
“There are young kids in this town who weren’t even born when all this stuff was happening. A whole new generation of young ones are going to be scarred by this.”
Nigel McDonagh, the longstanding editor of Omagh newspaper the Ulster Herald, said there was a sense of shock and disbelief in the town 25 years after its darkest day.
“Youthsport Omagh is a very popular sports facility in the community and those weekdays are always busy.
“For something like this to happen it was extremely traumatic for all the people present at the scene.
“Overall there is just a real sense of shock and disbelief that this has happened in the town.
“The Omagh bomb was the last horrific atrocity of the Troubles and since the Good Friday Agreement obviously people would have felt that things had changed.
“In 2011 when Ronan Kerr was killed here, that shocked everybody and those things are still fresh in people’s minds.
“We’ve heard the phrase a few times since last night that we thought those days were over, and it just adds to the real shock in the town that once again something like this has happened here.”
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