Video: Gardaí shown violently breaking into car in ‘unprovoked attack’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndjJodItl30

The guards in Mayo might be getting paid a lot of overtime to police the Shell to Sea protestors, but a new video shows the power's probably going to their heads.

The video shows a motorist being stopped at a garda checkpoint in Glengad yesterday. Probably a pretty run of the mill event with the protests there over the last couple of years. What wasn't so standard, though, was the fact they smashed his window in and threatened to pepper spray him in the face.

The incident happened yesterday when the driver stopped with the three gardaí. He couldn't open his window when asked to, but couldn't because the motor was broken. Despite continuously telling the gardaí to that effect they decided to whip out their extendable steel batons a smack the hell out of the passenger window.

The four gardaí at the checkpoint gathered round and demanded that the driver get out of the car. The man agreed to go with them to Belmullet Garda Station, but calmly asked if he could grab his phone first.

The driver's behaviour is a little weird to say the least, but did he deserve that?