Pete Taylor has opened up in detail about the fatal shooting that occurred at his gym in Bray Co Wicklow last month, in which his friend Bobby Messett was shot dead.
The former Olympic trainer was injured in the attack, receiving two gunshot wounds, causing him to be hospital bed bound for a number of weeks.
Now, the 56-year-old has spoken out about exactly what happened that day, and how he doesn’t believe he was the original target of the gunman.
“People are afraid and I understand that,” he told the Irish Independent.
“You’re like a bad disease to everybody. But they’re afraid because of what they’re reading and the slant being put on it. And what nobody’s saying is I only got shot because I ran at the gunman. The guards will tell you that.
“I was plugging in my phone for the music to start the training session. Everybody was at their stations.
“And that’s when I heard bang, bang, bang… I had my back to everything and my first thought was it’s one of my air compressors backfiring. That was the kind of noise it was making.
“I actually turned around half in irritation to tell one of the lads to turn off the air compressor. And that’s when I saw the gunman at the door, just shooting randomly,”
“Two girls near me had dived onto the floor. Everybody was running for cover anywhere they could, into the bathrooms, hiding behind machines.
“I was probably in the safest place in the club because I was behind a big, steel cable machine. But I just ran across the gym at him and he shot at me twice. One missed me, but the second one hit and I ended up on my back.”
Pete was told by police that he was the intended target of the gunman, a statement which has left the Bray man ‘confused’.
“I’m completely confused by it. I’ve never been involved in criminal activity. The guards have said it. They’ve got my phone going back to 2009, they’ve got my laptop, they’ve searched the club, gone through the GPS in my car.
“Like if I thought there was the tiniest danger to anyone in the club, do you think I’d have been turning up at quarter to seven every morning? Heading down there in complete darkness in the winter? Leaving the door open during training? No cameras in the building?”
Pete’s daughter, Olympic champion boxer Katie Taylor released a statement following the attack on her dad and fellow gym members last month.
