The murder of a 28-year-old man in west Belfast has sparked fears of further violence, as Dublin criminals exact revenge for the death of gangster Robbie Lawlor.
Warren Crossan was shot dead yards from his mother's home in the St James' area of the city just before 1pm on Saturday.
Two masked gunmen chased the victim from Rodney Parade, firing shots at him as he fled, before fatally wounding him as he fell at St Katharine's Road.
Crossan had been arrested and questioned by police in April within hours of Lawlor being shot dead in the garden of a house in Ardoyne in north Belfast.
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A major player in the drugs trade, having been described in court as the 'kingpin' of a criminal gang, he was on bail facing charges for cocaine importation.
His father, Continuity IRA boss Tommy Crossan, was killed in 2014 by rival dissidents. No-one has ever been charged with his murder.
Police are checking CCTV from outside the family home as they try to hunt the killers responsible for the latest gangland-style attack.
Crossan was facing trial in connection with a plot to smuggle £180,000 worth of cocaine across the border, concealed inside the door panels of a van stopped on the A1 at Sprucefield in November last year.
Prosecutors claimed at the time he was connected to the drugs through text messages with a co-accused who was driving a Citroen Berlingo, and that he had paid the driver to collect the consignment in the Republic and bring it north.
Crossan had been warned he was under threat, along with a man from north Belfast who was present at the shooting in Ardoyne in April and has also been arrested and questioned by police.
The murder of Lawlor was believed to have been contracted by a rival Dublin gang for a fee of £50,000, negotiated through Crossan’s family connections in Limerick.
From Dublin but with an address near Drogheda, Lawlor (36) was involved in a feud with a rival gang and is thought to have ordered the savage murder of teenager Keane Mulready Wood earlier this year.
He had been a regular visitor to Belfast and had been seen socialising in the city's Cathedral Quarter in the weeks leading up to his murder.
Crossan was accused of helping lure the gangster to his death.
Arrested within hours of the murder, a car belonging to Crossan was also seized by police from outside his mother's west Belfast home.
He had been living in Crumlin in Co Antrim, where he ran a car sales business.
Detectives are trying to establish if Lawlor's gang travelled to Belfast to carry out the murder or contracted local killers.
Detective Chief Inspector Darren McCartney, from the PSNI's Major Investigation Team, said the gunmen "did not give any thought to the risk posed to local people in this community who were going about their business at lunchtime when they ran through the streets firing shots".
He said at least one bullet hit a car belonging to a resident, adding: "Nor did they care who may have been collateral damage in this highly populated residential area during their mission to kill."
Sinn Féin MP Paul Maskey was among those who condemned the killing, saying: “My thoughts are with the family of the man was has been killed. No family should have to go through this heartache.
"Those involved in this act have absolutely no place in our community. They must cease their anti-community activities and get off the back of the people of west Belfast."
