Arrest Made in Slaying of Journalist

Lyra McKee was shot during rioting in Northern Ireland
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 6, 2019 4:15 PM CDT
Arrest Made in Slaying of Journalist
Lyra McKee who was shot and killed when guns were fired during clashes with police in Northern Ireland.   (Family photo/PSNI via AP)

Police in Northern Ireland have arrested a 46-year-old man in the shooting death of freelance journalist Lyra McKee in April. The suspect was arrested under the Terrorism Act, CNN reports. Police first conducted two searches in Derry—also called Londonderry. McKee, 29, was near a police vehicle watching rioting in the city when she was shot by a gunman firing into a residential area. She died soon after from her injuries, police said. The New IRA, a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army, apologized for the shooting. Police have arrested and released several people in the case, Reuters notes.

McKee's death was met with outrage in Northern Ireland, where a 1998 peace deal mostly ended sectarian violence that had killed some 3,600 people over three decades, and Irish and British leaders attended her funeral in April. Saying "she deserves justice," McKee's sister called on the killers to turn themselves in, along with anyone helping or protecting the killers. In the weeks after the slaying, graffiti threatening to kill anyone helping the police investigation was sprayed in the area, per the Guardian. More than 140 people have provided video footage or other information, police said. (A soldier is charged 47 years after Bloody Sunday.)

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