An off-duty PSNI officer has been wounded in a shooting outside a school in Derry city.
The 43-year-old probationary officer is now in a stable condition in hospital with injuries that are described as not life-threatening.
It is understood he is a Derry-born Catholic who joined the PSNI two years ago. The attack has been blamed on dissident republicans.
With a growing number of Catholics joining the PSNI, senior officers said they feared dissident republicans opposed to the peace process would carry out such an incident.
The officer was shot at the Lumen Christi Grammar School in Bishop Street as he was dropping one of his children off at the school.
He was hit as he pulled up in his car and although badly wounded, he managed to drive off and reach Strand Road police station where he was given immediate first aid treatment.
Staff at Lumen Christi College said none of their pupils or parents were affected by the shooting.
A car believed to have been used in the attack was later found burned out on the Creggan Estate.
Appeal for information
Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness condemned the attack and appealed for anyone with information to contact the PSNI.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, added his voice to criticism, saying it showed a particularly vicious disregard for the lives of children and their parents.
Mr Ahern said the perpetrators represented no-one, and had no agenda except destruction and a return to conflict.
While the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, Professor Desmond Rea, said it was 'a cowardly shooting'.
Mr Rea said his thoughts were with the officer and his family and urged anyone with information to contact the police.
The shooting followed claims by the International Monitoring Commission of the threat posed by dissident republicans belonging to the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA who have been involved in a series of incidents, some of them in Derry.
East Derry DUP MP Gregory Campbell said the shooting had all the hallmarks of an attack by dissidents.
Condemning the attack, he said 'if it was wrong to shoot a policeman 10 years ago, then it is wrong today. There needs to be absolute condemnation of this shooting as well as total support for the police throughout the entire community'.
