Editing Royal Ulster Constabulary (section)

===First deaths===
The first deaths of the Troubles occurred in July 1969. Francis McCloskey, a 67-year-old Catholic civilian, had been found unconscious on 13 July near the [[Dungiven]] [[Orange Institution#Orange halls|Orange Hall]] following a police baton charge against a crowd who had been throwing stones at the hall. Witnesses later said they had seen police batoning a figure in the doorway where McCloskey was found, although police claimed that he had been unconscious before the baton charge and may have been hit with a stone. He was taken to hospital and died the following day.<ref name=lostlives>{{cite book| last1=McKittrick|first1=David|last2=Kelters| first2=Seamus|last3=Feeney| first3=Brian|last4=Thornton|first4=Chris| title=Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland Troubles|date=2008|publisher=Mainstream Publishing|location=Edinburgh|isbn=978-1-84018-504-1|page=32|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sdYcw7Zs3W4C}}</ref><ref name=cain-14-jul-69>{{cite web|last1=Sutton|first1=Malcolm|title=14 July 1969 (re Francis McCloskey)|work=An Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland|url=http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1969.html|publisher=Conflict Archive on the Internet|access-date=21 February 2014|archive-date=19 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120219010535/http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1969.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

On 11 October 1969, Constable Victor Arbuckle was shot dead by loyalists on Belfast's [[Shankill Road]] during serious rioting in protest at the recommendations of the Hunt Report. Arbuckle was the first police fatality of the Troubles. In August 1970, two young constables, Donaldson and Millar, died when an abandoned car they were examining near the strongly republican town of [[Crossmaglen]] exploded. They became the first security forces victims of the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign]]. This campaign involved the targeting of police officers, and continued until the final [[ceasefire]] in 1997, as the [[Northern Ireland peace process|peace process]] gained momentum. The last RUC officer killed, Constable Francis O'Reilly (a Catholic), was also killed by loyalists, in a September 1998 bombing during the [[Drumcree conflict]].<ref name=lostlives/>