Alas, Monty, I have to chime in with a couple of examples for you.
The most recent example, of course, was the actions of the Korean-American community in LA in the throes of the riots there after the verdict for the first Rodney King trial. The persons involved witht the incident used their firearms to keep the rioters away from their property. It was a use of deadly force against the normal understanding of the law, and thus, by both of our defitions, a form of vigilianteism.
Having said that, it was also a specific instance where the normal civil order had collapsed. There were, IIRC, two days when the LAPD simply wrote off certain neighborhoods as being too dangerous to police.
There are other historical cases of vigilanteism that are hard to condemn - usually cases of “frontier” justice. I don’t have any cites for this, I’m afraid, but citizen commisions have taken the law into their own hands in the past where the official law had not yet been established.
This is not an endorsement of that thinking. Those few cases where such did not get out of hand are balanced by things like the range wars that were the beginning of Billy the Kid’s career - which was, AIUI, fed by the fact that the law in that case was corrupt and simply the criminals who happened to have badges.
OtakuLoki Self-defence is not vigilantism. If someone attacks you and you defend yourself, even to the point of using deadly force, you are not a vigilante. We can have a debate about the limits of self defence, but it is not germane to the OP’s topic. We can also discuss situations where there is no law at all, where citizens must band together to defend themselves. But that too is far afield from the situation described in the OP.
Larry Borgia, I agree with you’re saying: self-defense is not vigilanteism.
However, in the case of the riot, the normal requirements for proving self-defense were not there. IANAL, but normally for self-defense of someone’s home to allow the use of deadly force, the person or persons being defended against have to be on, or in, one’s property. In the case I’m mentioning, the people defending themselves were shooting at people in public thoroughfares, normally actions that are against the standards of the law.
In this case, the people using the deadly force were not what I’d consider vigilantes in any but the most strict sense of my defition posted earlier. Certainly I don’t fault them for their actions, nor do I believe that they did anything wrong. As we both accept there were extenuating circumstances out the wazoo, here. I simply meant, in the spirit of a Devil’s Advocate to offer a few cases where vigilanteism has been a defensible action.
There are times where the social order has so completely broken down that people do have to take the law into their own hands. The L.A. Riots and the old west were such times and places. New Orleans may be such a place today. But these exceptional times do not strike me has relating to what the OP is talking about. Here we seem to have a serial killer who is unique only in that his victims are pretty loathsome themselves. And it is occuring in a time and place where there is a functioning police force and judicuary.
I think Monty is asking for an example of vigilante justice in normal, not exeptional, circumstances. Some of the more alarming posts about vigilantes being preferable to police (!) are also implying that vigilantes are better than police in all circumstances in the present day U.S., not just in extreme situations.
You may be right, Larry, about what Monty was asking for. I certainly am not holding up any of my examples as being related to the OP. I certainly don’t mean to support any of the more gleeful posters in this thread. Like I said - just playing a big of Devil’s Advocate.
For the proponents of vigilantism, where do you draw the line?
Killing two level III sex offenders is okay, but what about killing 48 street prostitutes? Prostitution is illegal. Many street prostitutes are generally known to also be drug addicts and/or participate in other illegal activities like robbery and assault. Surely they too are the dregs of society and deserve to be killed since the failing legal system can’t control them. No?
How many victims are “okay” before some imaginary line is crossed and the vigilante crosses the line from “okay” vigilante to “not okay” serial murderer… 2? 20? 100? no limit?
And what happens if it’s discovered that the vigilante evolves in his method and doesn’t stop at the murder, but goes on to mutilate the corpse? Or torture the victim for days before finally killing them?
Yeah, that’s kinda obvious. You come across pretty aggressive. Ads an air of dislikability, but if it works for you, whatever.
I assume you mean
Yeah, did not read this one before it posted, should always remember to refresh. However it didn’t seem to bring anything new, just another moral judgement presented as fact, and more implication of moral superiority. Now if you were to tell me you have made the requisite study of ethics, philosophy, comparitive religion, psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology, history, and whatever else one would need to study to become an expert on morality, you might have some validity. However, if you had made that study, I doubt you would make tha statements you had.I’m no expert, but I know enough to realize that morals are much more fluid, designed by societies to maintain their status quo. To claim your moral beliefs are “right” isn’t ethnocentric, but is at least culturally centered, and somewhat prejudicial.
BTW, explain to me how “some people need killing” isn’t a moral judgment. While you’re about that, be sure to include when and where you “have made the requisite study of ethics, philosophy, comparitive religion, psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology, history, and whatever else one would need to study to become an expert on morality.”
The Vigilante is my hero. If the two were indeed convicted L3 child rapists then… Godspeed Vigil. Monty I always hear the same arguments. If this act is okay, then is it okay to kill prostitutes? What a load of crap. Lets see: kidnap a child from her room, rape and torture herfor days, all the while crying for her mommy, terror and pain we can’t imagine, and bury her alive… or taking a John into an alley for a BJ. Seems pretty much the same to me.
As far as “they have done their time” Once again, BS. I here link to a previous thread and a post bykung fu lola were she supplies a study in Canada showing the rates of recidivism being the highest among these animals and the success rates (or lack of) at reform. The one’s that were taken out are in the group most likely to have committed many acts before being caught and most likely to abuse another child. The one in Florida most recently was an convicted offender and being “tracked” IIRC. Did not keep that child from dying the most horrible death imaginable.
Get off the same old tired song about “What if he starts going after…what… late parking tickets” or some such inane examples. Don’t confuse the Law with Justice. They are rarely the same thing.
Did you just say “I know you are, but what am I?” (why do I think that sentence needs a second question mark outside the quotes?) Come on, dude.
At least do me the favor or reading the sentence in which you pull the quote. Not claiming it’s not a moral judgement, not even claiming it’s a better or preferable moral judgement, just that its different. A direct (albeit anecdotal) piece of evidence contrary to your implied (at that point) arguement that killing is wrong. You previously replied
Says who? You? Why? Because of your absolute moral sense? So your argument is that I’m wrong because I don’t agree with you? Wow.
Now then, you posted
immediately after posting
Again I’m not an expert, merely a hobbyist, at best. But I’ve read enough to understand that moral absolutist beliefs are nieve at the best, sometimes even dangerous, for example this gentleman in Seattle. We both agree his moral absolutism is wrong, where we disagree is in viewing that yours is too. Perhaps if you had an arguement supporting your contention that your morals are the right ones perhaps we could discuss that, but what you’re doing now, it’s just sad.
I saw in your bio you have an interest in Theology, so your moral sense was probably overly influenced by a specific religious system. Religious Belief and Moral Absolutism often go together. People with strong convictions ofen act irrationally when those convictions are scrutinized, so don’t worry, I won’t take anything you say too personally, ok?
Your hero? A murderer is your hero. Sit back for a minute and think about that statement. A man who spends the time to plan out a means to infiltrate the home of, gain the confidence of, and slay in cold blood two people… is the man who you look up to.
That is perhaps the sickest thing I’ve ever heard. That ranks right up there with the women who send marriage proposals to convicted serial killers while they await trial in prison.
Just trying to deliniate where you draw the line. At what level of “bad person” do you say it’s okay to kill someone because you feel the system has failed. Is a level II sex offender at any less of a risk from your wrath? What about a serial killer himself? Surely someone who methodically takes the lives of people is even more dangerous and worthy or your ire than a rapist or pedophile, no? As awful as those crimes are, they leave victims, not corpses… and many victims survive and thrive.
As a side note, your examples are fallible because they’re extreme cases on either side of their respective spectrums. Not all child rapists/molesters kidnap their victims. Not all torture them so for days. Not all of them get off on the act of torture at all, nevermind keep them conscious so they can relish their begging for mercy.
And on the other side, not all prostitutes so innocently offer their “pleasures” in back alleyways. Some of them invite you into said alley so their pimp can stab you and take your wallet. Some of them ply their trade to support a crippling drug addiction, through which, by extension, they help support drug trafficking, dangerous drug labs in residential neighborhoods, and yes, murder.
Again, I’m of the opinion that these people should not be allowed back into society. But again, I consider that an entirely different debate and in any case does not justify their being murdered. We don’t even know the facts… these two may have been of the few that actually were rehabilitated. I don’t hold that opinion, but that’s me and in that particular argument, we agree.
Here’s where we differ again though. You call it an inane example, but any study of serial killers shows that their crimes escalate.
Albert DeSalvo started out as The Measuring Man. He conned women at a local college into believing he was a talent scout for a modelling agency and talked them into letting him measure their bodies. The opportunity he’d use to fondle and grope them. Not long after that he began knocking randomly on women’s doors and convincing them he was with a maintenance crew so they’d let him inside, at which point he’d rape and murder them. He became known as the Boston Strangler.
Slight difference between a vendetta killer and a serial killer, but the point being that there is ample evidence that the psychosis which leads someone to kill evolves and changes as they become more comfortable. And mission killers like this guy seems to be, or like the Son of Sam or the Zebra Killers, tend to expand their boundaries and evolve.
And who’s to say what his idea of justice is? How do you know he’ll stop at pedophiles? Again you attempt to use blatant hyperbole to argue the inanity of something by suggesting that he’ll go after someone with unpaid parking tickets, when no one has even suggested anything remotely similar.
The point you are trying to prove is that this man will not evolve and will only murder level III sex offenders and the fact is, that is highly improbable.
Now, completely aside from that, it just occured to me: Has anyone considered that this may have just been a murder for hire by an aggrieved relative or friend of one of these men’s victims?
The difference here is that the L3 SO’s have been convicted and put on a list. The vig in the OP is targeting the list, of known L3 SO’s. Prostitutes may rob and use drugs, but how do you know which ones have, and which ones have not? A vigilante isn’t going to randomly kill because he suspects you rob and use drugs. He’s going to make sure you have done the crime, and then carry out the deed.
I think a lot of confusion with vigilantism, is that people think vigilantes randomly harm people. If I were violated and wanted to carry out an act of vigilantism, I would make sure I would carry out the deed with whom I had the actual beef. Not just people who I think may have done something to me (Note: Not endorsing, just giving an example). In the case of the OP, he’s only targeting those on the list. And I suspect this vigilante isn’t going to just harm who ever is living where the L3 SO’s are, he’s probably doing his homework and targeting the actual person, and doing his best to not harm innocent person living there. Vigilantes don’t intentionally want to harm innocent people.
Compiling such a list would not require much homework at all. There’s a public access channel here that spends a few hours a day showing mugshots and names of people who have been recently arrested and what they’ve been arrested for (and it’s usually things like possession, soliciting, robbery, etc.) as well as people who are wanted for the same.
Such information is public knowledge and easily accessible.
I’m wary to agree that this person is targeting only level III offenders. He’s killed two so far, but it was one attack. If he strikes again, we don’t know it will be another level III. And without looking at the database to see how many level III’s there are in Bellingham, hypothetically speaking, what if there are 4… once he kills all 4, then what? Is he just going to stop killing? Move to another town, a bigger town, like Seattle? Or will he lighten his requisites? Switch to targets who haven’t yet been convicted, or who have gotten off on technicalities?
I think it’s unsafe to suggest what he may or may not do based on only the one attack.
As would I. And it goes to reason he does as well as according to the article, the third roommate came home for a brief time and was unharmed. Assuming he wasn’t also a registered offender, which the article doesn’t mention, it would point to his having done his homework and thus only target the two, not wishing to harm an innocent.
However, as you say, he’ll do “his best to not harm (an) innocent person”. What if his best isn’t good enough?
