David "Dathaí" Douglas, an Irish zookeeper turned criminal, was shot dead on 1 July 2016. He had convictions dating from the 1980s as well as more recent ones and had survived a shooting the previous November.
Contents
Criminal history
In 1983 he received a twelve-year sentence at the Special Criminal Court for shooting with intent to kill a Garda during an armed robbery at an Allied Irish Banks sub branch at Wang Laboratories in Castletroy, Limerick in 1982. He had been a member of the Provisional IRA. It has been alleged that he was kicked out of the IRA because of his involvement with illegal drugs.
Shortly after sentencing for his part in the 1982 raid on AIB in Wang laboratories, he was sentenced for three other offences committed in 1982:
He told Gardaí that these raids had been carried out on behalf of the Provisional IRA, which the Gardaí accepted.
He was released from prison in the mid-1990s, resumed his criminal activities and became increasingly involved in illegal drug trafficking.
In 2008 he was stopped in a taxi with three other men near Pearse Street - Gardaí recovered a black holdall containing 8 kg of cocaine. Telephone records from the previous three months linked the men. These drugs were trafficked by the Kinahan cartel.
In December 2011 he was sentenced to ten years, with five suspended. He was also involved in dog fighting.
He had links to the Hutch gang, as well as George Mitchell and a gang in Finglas.
2015 shooting
A senior member of the Kinehan gang survived an assassination attempt in November 2015 at a pub in West Dublin. The Kinehan gang blamed Douglas and an associate of his, Darren Kearns, who had convictions for drug dealing. Kearns was shot dead at the end of December 2015, with Gardaí believing that his death was the work of the Kinehan gang and that it was feud related. Gardaí concluded that David Douglas was in a pub in the north inner city at the time of the attempted assassination and was not directly involved.
Douglas was shot in November 2015 while walking his dog near his home. His wife insisted after this shooting that he was a law-abiding citizen.
2016 shooting
He and his wife ran the Shoestown shop on Bridgefoot Street, where he was shot at about 4:10 pm on 1 July 2016. He was treated by paramedics at the scene and then taken to St. James's Hospital where he died. Gardaí are investigating if this shooting is linked to the Irish gangland feud.
A handgun was recovered at the scene of the shooting. A stolen Mercedes car that detectives believed was used in the killing was found burnt-out.