Post by earl on Apr 24, 2008 19:23:14 GMT
ONE of New York’s best-known Irish policemen, Inspector Paul McCormack, was honored last weekend in his native Co. Donegal when he was the guest of honor at a charity ball hosted by Bundoran Town Council Chairman Billy Mulhern.
McCormack was honored for his achievements as a Donegal man with the NYPD, for his work promoting Gaelic football in the force -– he’s president of the NYPD’s Gaelic football club -– and for his assistance for the campaign on behalf of the undocumented Irish in the U.S.
Bundoran Council opted to accord him the special honor on the proposal of Sinn Fein councilor Michael McMahon, who is closely linked to the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform.
McCormack, a native of Ballybofey, Co. Donegal, spent the weekend visiting local schools in Bundoran and nearby Ballyshannon where he repeated the same message to pupils: “Get high on living; shun the drugs and binge-drinking.”
The Gaelic football fanatic urged the kids to get involved in sport.
He recalled in a local radio interview how when he left Ireland 22 years ago murder was still such a rare event that each killing would shock the entire nation. Now gangland murders were almost a weekly happening. There was one in Dublin on the night he was being honored in Bundoran.
He also noted with regret how drugs have taken a grip in Ireland, with prosecutions for illegal narcotics possession now almost commonplace in even the most remote Irish village.
“Growing up in Donegal I didn’t even know what illegal drugs looked like. I saw drugs for the first time only when I made my first drugs arrest in New York,” he said.
McCormack also spoke for the first time in Ireland of how he had to shoot dead an armed thug to save his partner. He said it happened shortly after he joined the NYPD 18 years ago.
“I’ve drawn my gun many, many times. You can’t go around not having your gun out,” he said. “There are situations you have to have it out actually in your hand. Thank goodness I’ve only had to fire it once.
“I had to kill a guy attacking my partner when I was a young cop in the 42nd Precinct in the south Bronx. Otherwise my partner would have lost a leg.
“It happened so fast you don’t think about it. It’s something you have to do at the time. You’re a little shocked when you fire the gun.”
He later worked as a sergeant in charge of an elite crime-busting squad in an even more dangerous area, the 46th precinct which was regarded as the toughest square mile in America and dubbed “The Alamo.”
Now he’s an executive officer with the NYPD Brooklyn housing department, a job that puts him in charge of the battle against crime in what he described as the current most dangerous areas of the city in the public housing schemes.
McCormack regularly visits Donegal and Dublin and has accompanied the Gaelic football club in the NYPD when it twice played Donegal Gardai (cops) and other teams in Ireland.