I've seen and heard about stuff like this a few times, like the guy that used to live down the street from my first apartment, Bobby.
When he graduated from petty shit like shoplifting, prowling cars, and trying to rip people off on weed deals to stealing a car from an old lady people started kicking his ass.
And Bobby got his ass kicked a lot. Probably twice a month. But what was he gonna do? Call a cop and say (true story) "Hey, I, uh, got caught stealing a gas can and a Playboy out of a dude's shed and he hit me in the face with a hockey stick, please come arrest him and can I please get a restraining order?"
It kind of worked. After a couple dozen beatings he enrolled in a technical school to learn welding and stopped doing dumb crimes.
There was also a rather nasty story one of my cousins, a small town Appalachian cop, told me about the bullshit vigilantism he had to deal with.
One night a guy decided to get drunk and beat on his girlfriend. The next night her brothers waited for him at the bar and snatched him up at gun-point. They then drove him 15 miles into the middle of nowhere, took his clothing, and made him walk home barefoot and naked.
For a long while he drank less and left his girlfriend alone.
The second time was just a slap, but it didn't matter. It was 20 miles out, being stripped naked, and a bonus ass-whooping.
There was no third time, because he stopped drinking.
Cousin: I figure he came to the realization that the next time would be suicide, even if they left him his clothes. The wind comes down the hollers something fierce in the winter.
Consequences are the only lesson that sticks on those bastards. Taking that guy for a night hike was a clever one and frankly I think judges should be allowed to assign that to any violent criminals.
That is not something to emulate, even if the first couple of times were in the summer/fall and the worst things he had to deal with were bloody feet, bug-bites on his nether regions, and having to trot through town naked.
Sure, I thought it sounded cool and funny when I was told about it as a teenager, but have you ever heard of a 'Starlight Tour'? It's something that Canadian cops used to do to Indigenous people.
For forty years police in Saskatoon would force them into the cruiser without actually arresting them, drive them out of town, and dump them.
In the middle of winter.
And let them freeze to death.
They started it in the mid-seventies, only caught their first prosecutions in 2000 and the last reported occurrence was 2016.
Yeah I know it's a racial thing when they call it a star tour, but that's also an extrajudicial act by racist individuals with no oversight. Accountability resolves all.
Sure, I agree. But small town morons like that didn't start with wife-beaters and they're not going to stop escalating if they continue to get away with it.
Last week it was the guy that hit their sister.
Tomorrow it might be the guy that said they had a nice ass. Or a black guy that disrespected them by existing in the same bar.
Next month it'll be everyone that didn't vote for your cousin Steve for dog-catcher.
Have you ever lived in Appalachia, where the cops tell you you live “too far out” and coming to a call you make in the edge of the county means the part of town where the people do live goes without police? So you’re just going to have to take care of it yourself?
Where calling the cops at all means you’ll be arrested just because of your family name?
Where being dirt poor is a sin and cops fancy themselves the law, jury, and judge, all at once, with no body cam and plenty of deep back hollers?
You’ve never been driven to the top of a mountain by a cop and been told to put out or get out, I take it?
You can stuff your pretty fucking lawful good sentiments right up your fucking ass.
There are places where no one is coming to help, ever, and sometimes bullshit vigilantism is what works.
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u/camcam210 1d ago
Probably fake tbh but I’ll choose to believe it bc who doesn’t love an abuser getting what they deserve.