Drug Crime, Greed, and Community Destruction

national | miscellaneous | feature Thursday December 14, 2006 14:36 by Libertarian Socialist

RIP Anthony Campbell

The Site of Another Drugs
Related Death in the Blanch last year

Anthony Campbell, a 20-year-old apprentice plumber who lived in block F of the flats, at St Michan's House flats complex, near the Four Courts in Dublin was gunned down as he went about his work in a house at Scribblestown Park, Finglas, north Dublin yesterday morning.

Such was the swift, indiscriminate and chilling nature of the attack that he probably never realised why he was being killed. The cruel twist of circumstance that led to his death saw him shot in the house of a relative of a major crime boss because he would have been a witness to the killing of that criminal. Gardaí said he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Dealing with the nightmare: how inner city communities organised in the 90's to stop drug dealing | Rethinking the War on Drugs - A Public Forum | | Dolphins Barn And Drugs: The State Of Play Today? | A look at life, work, drugs and death in Blanchardstown | Police harassment of COCAD members in 2002

As he left for work yesterday, he would have had no idea that he was about to become the latest victim of a violent feud in the criminal underworld he would only have read about in newspapers.

Anthony was from St Michans flats in the inner city, just off North Kings Street. He had recently been let go from his job and was doing a nixer to earn some extra cash for the Christmas in order to help his young family. The wider family are well known and respected throughout the close knit community as being honest, humble and hard working. He had recently helped establish a football club in his local community which has been wrecked over the years from hard drugs and criminal activity.

A young working class lad trying to make a life for himself in an area that has been marginalised with the roar of middle class Ireland's Celtic pup. A lad brimming with hope and determination to succeed in a grisly world where education is none and state support minimal.

The Real Impact of Drugs
The reality of the use of hard drugs: crack cocaine in particular has yet to hit home for middle class Ireland. As our consumer youth snort lines from the toilets of Tripod whilst spending excessive amounts of money on clothes, mortgages etc they fail to see the filth whom they are feeding huge amounts of money.

In working class communities an attitude of get rich or die trying has become the norm. As the youth stare at MTV's cribs and watch folk walking out of Brown Thomas with the latest Gucci bag they pry on a lifestyle that can only be given to them through the selling of drugs or other parts of this industry within their communities: running, watching, scaring locals, building a system of fear through cut throat authority until hopefully they will rise to the top and work with their drug lords

The dogs at the top don’t give a damn about anything except for their own excessive greed and authority. A lad killed through the greed of others, a microcosm perhaps of the larger reality of cut throat business. Men in suits armed with legal weapons or men in hoodies armed with cheap guns. Neither gives a shit about others, particularly those most affected by their deeds: ordinary working people.

Whilst these communities fall apart the rest of Ireland and the middle class 'Popes Children' continue to live in a bubble, working class communities self destruct. The death of Anthony is a horrible tragedy. An innocent victim whom I cry bitter tears today.