The Milltown Murderer - Michael Stone - Northern Ireland Troubles

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Michael Stone was a loyalist, a member of the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) who had been involved in several killings and other attacks, and who described himself as a "freelance loyalist paramilitary". Stone learned that there would be little security force presence at the funerals, and planned "to take out the Sinn Féin and IRA leadership at the graveside". He said his attack was retaliation for the Remembrance Day bombing four months earlier, when eleven Protestants had been killed by an IRA bomb at a Remembrance Sunday ceremony. He later told journalist Peter Taylor that "it was symbolic: the IRA had attacked a British cenotaph and he was taking revenge by attacking the IRA equivalent". Stone claimed that he and other UDA members considered planting bombs in the graveyard, but abandoned the plan because the bombs might miss the republican leaders. He instead decided to carry out a one-man attack with guns and grenades. Stone claimed that a "senior member of the UDA" had given him the organization's official clearance for the attack and that he was given a Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol, a Ruger Speed-Six .357 Magnum revolver and seven RGD-5 grenades the night before the funeral.
The funeral service and requiem mass went ahead as planned, and the cortege made its way to Milltown Cemetery, off the Falls Road. Present were thousands of mourners and top members of the IRA and Sinn Féin, including Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. Two RUC helicopters hovered overhead. Stone claimed that he entered the graveyard through the front gate with the mourners and mingled with the large crowd, although one witness claimed to have seen him enter from the M1 motorway with three other people.

As the third coffin was about to be lowered into the ground, Stone threw two grenades—which had a seven-second delay—toward the republican plot and began shooting. The first grenade exploded near the crowd and about 20 yards (18 m) from the grave. There was panic and confusion, and people dived for cover behind gravestones. Stone began jogging toward the motorway, several hundred yards away, chased by dozens of men and youths. He periodically stopped to shoot and throw grenades at his pursuers. In the 19 March edition of the Irish Times, columnist Kevin Myers, an opponent of republican paramilitary violence, wrote: "Unarmed young men charged against the man hurling grenades and firing an automatic pistol [...] The young men stalking their quarry repeatedly came under fire; they were repeatedly bombed; they repeatedly advanced. Indeed this was not simply bravery; this was a heroism which in other circumstances, I have no doubt, would have won the highest military decorations".

Three people were killed while pursuing Stone:[2] Catholic civilians Thomas McErlean (20) and John Murray (26), and IRA member Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh (30), also known as Kevin Brady. During the attack, about 60 people were wounded by bullets, grenade shrapnel and fragments of marble and stone from gravestones. Among those wounded was a pregnant mother of four, a 72-year-old grandmother and a ten-year-old boy. Some fellow loyalists said that Stone made the mistake of throwing his grenades too soon; the death toll would likely have been much higher had the grenades exploded in mid-air, "raining lethal shrapnel over a wide area".

A white van that had been parked on the hard shoulder of the motorway suddenly drove off as Stone fled from the angry crowd. There was speculation that the van was part of the attack, but the RUC said it was part of a police patrol, and that the officers sped off because they feared for their lives. Stone said he had arranged for a getaway car, driven by a UDA member, to pick him up on the hard shoulder of the motorway, but the driver allegedly "panicked and left". By the time Stone reached the motorway, he had seemingly run out of ammunition. He ran out onto the road and tried to stop cars, but was caught by the crowd, beaten, and bundled into a hijacked vehicle. Armed RUC officers in Land Rovers quickly arrived, "almost certainly saving his life". They arrested him and took him to Musgrave Park Hospital for treatment of his injuries. The whole event had been recorded by television news cameras.

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