Liam Quinn

William Joseph Quinn known as Liam Quinn (born 1949 in San Francisco, U.S.) is a former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who killed London Metropolitan Police Constable Stephen Tibble at Charleville Road, Barons Court, London in February 1975. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE4DC1F3CF932A15753C1A960948260&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fOrganizations%2fI%2fIrish%20Republican%20Army%20 New York Times- American Is Extradited To Britain in Killing] ] [ [http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/1998/05/06/ihead.htm Balcombe Street gang moved to Portlaoise] ]

Tibble, who was off duty at the time, saw Quinn fleeing from the police after he had ran from a flat in Hammersmith, in which Quinn and fellow members of the Balcombe Street Gang had been preparing bombs. Tibble give chase on his motorbike and, while attempting to stop Quinn, was shot and killed.cite web | title=BBC News On This Day - 1975: PC murder linked to IRA bomb factory| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/27/newsid_2515000/2515789.stm]

Extradition

Quinn returned to the USA in the aftermath of the shooting and was extradited to the United Kingdom in February 1988 where he was jailed for life for murder. Quinn served 11 years before he was released, along with the rest of the Balcombe Street Gang, under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. [ [http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch88.htm A Chronology of the Conflict - 1988] ] While with the IRA, Quinn was tagged with the nickname “Yankee Joe” because of his American origins. ["The Road To Balcombe Street", Steven Moysey, Haworth (2007), ISBN 0789029138]

References