With reports of riot and insurrection coming in from all sides, the Stormont Government authorised a number of steps which had the effect of making a bad situation worse. In Belfast, Shorland armoured personnel carriers mounted with heavy Browning machine guns were deployed by the RUC. The sound of these weapons, magnified in built-up areas, spread panic. The bullets tore through walls as if they were cardboard. A nine-year-old boy, Patrick Rooney, was killed as he lay asleep, leaving his distraught father to scrape his brains off the wall with a spoon and a saucer.
