[dwheeler]

> frontier justice came for McElroy courtesy of the residents of Skidmore (population 440 at the time of the crime). Shaken by the man’s ability to evade jail even after being convicted of a near-fatal attack on a grocery store owner... Belkin also details Skidmore’s plague of subsequent violence ... the series persuasively contends that these crimes indicate that the McElroy episode taught younger Skidmore generations that doing as they savagely pleased was OK—and that they could get away with it, because their friends and neighbors wouldn’t speak out against them.

I'm not persuaded, at least by this text. Another possible interpretation is that the legal system around Skidmore was completely unable to convict a repeat violent offender (McElroy), leading to a widespread (correct) belief that the legal system would not also provide any kind of useful restraint to future offenders. Indeed, that interpretation seems more likely to me.

That doesn't make the actions acceptable, of course. But it does put a spotlight on the importance of having a working legal system that provides some reasonable level of protection to the larger community.

[tomc1985]

I'm with the mob on this one. As another comment put it, he was tried by a jury of his peers... if the justice system cannot help you then you have to take things into your own hands.

Might be hard for all us city slickers on HN to fathom, particularly when these sorts of country towns are frequently mocked or derided by people like us.

[idoubtit]

> if the justice system cannot help you then you have to take things into your own hands.

If you apply this rule strictly, then the mobs could first hit the police. In many countries, police officers are violent and have a de facto impunity when they break the law.

In the US, the police kills more than 1000 citizens each year, especially black men and teenagers. They very rarely face jail, not even loosing their job.

In my country, France, over the past year several dozens of citizens have lost an eye because of police shooting, a few have lost a hand because of grenades. The justice system protects the policemen, even when the videos are explicit. And when a juge tries to do his work, he can't. A grandma was killed while closing her window because she received a grenade in her head. The commanding officer refused to let the juge expertise the grenade launchers of his squad. He was promoted soon after.

Most people that prone self-defense and rant about some bad guys' impunity do no wish to see this fact: most policemen can break the law and not face the consequences. They're the only category of citizens that are above the law.

[LyndsySimon]

> If you apply this rule strictly, then the mobs could first hit the police. In many countries, police officers are violent and have a de facto impunity when they break the law.

Advocates of our Second Amendment - the right to keep and bear arms - understand this. This idea was the primary reason for the Second Amendment's inclusion in the Bill of Rights.

In the words of Tench Coxe:

> Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.

In my opinion, minorities in particular have reason to arm themselves and to be prepared to defend themselves if necessary. Armed protest against civil government by blacks and others has a long history in the United States: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-panthers-california-196...

If you're interested in this sort of history, I'll recommend a couple of books: "Negroes with Guns", by Robert F. Williams; and "This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed", by Charles Cobb, Jr.

Robert F. Williams is a very interesting personality in and of himself. Among other things, he founded the Black Armed Guard - an NRA-sponsored rifle club dedicated to the defense the black community from racial violence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Williams#Black_Armed...

[hanniabu]

> This idea was the primary reason for the Second Amendment's inclusion in the Bill of Rights.

Thank you eit bringing this up. While recent events with shootings are unfortunate, what's more unfortunate is the media taking advantage of these events to push an agenda by claiming the 2nd amendment is only for hunting and they only interview people that dat the same, then go down the road of saying these guns aren't needed for hunting and should be made illegal.

Call me crazy, but I'd wager this is all done out of initiative and agenda and not out of ignorance. Reasons being to disarm the population of any meaningful ways to defend against government suppression.

For those thinking that our own army would never attack their own people, a good amount of our military is now contractors from other countries that are paid mercenaries.

[wtdata]

> In my opinion, minorities in particular have reason to arm themselves and to be prepared to defend themselves if necessary.

That's an interesting take, since minorities commit - by very, very far - the greatest amount of violent crimes per capita in the USA.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

[LyndsySimon]

Yes, and if anything that supports my position. Minorities are statistically more likely to be both perpetrators and victims of violent crime. Members of those communities therefore are more likely than non-members to have a legitimate need to defend themselves.

[wtdata]

But, gun ownership clearly correlates with gun related violence (i.e. violent crime). Less guns, less violent crime.

[areyousure]

> In the US, the police kills more than 1000 citizens each year

In case anyone is curious to see a source, the Washington Post attempts to collect data regarding police shootings: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/four-years-in-...

[new_realist]

To put this in context, roughly 70 police were killed last year, and police made over ten million arrests. Your chance of being killed is roughly once in 10,000 arrests.

[chii]

I wonder what the number are like if the data is filtered to person of colour only.

[bitwize]

Some states, like Texas, still have the "needed killin'" defense: if a person accused of murder can prove to the jury that the victim needed killin', the jury will not convict (or will convict on a lesser charge). You have to pass a high bar to need killin': generally the defense only works if the accused can show that while not in immediate danger of life and limb, they felt sufficiently credibly threatened by the victim to believe they were at continual risk of injury or death if they didn't strike first.

In most other states, homicide is only justifiable under the higher threshold of being in immediate danger.

[dragonwriter]

It's not clear if you are referring to jury nullification here (which is not particular to Texas), to the reduction of murder to voluntary manslaughter by heat of passion (which is not particular to Texas), or to some actual special aspect of Texas law (perhaps some part of the operation of the imperfect self-defense rule under Texas law). Could you provide more detail?

[Bartweiss]

This made me curious too, so I went looking. Texas self defense law seem thoroughly standard for a southern/rural state. It has 'stand your ground' rules and a low charge rate for claims of self-defense, but neither is unusual.

There are only two exotic elements I can find. First, Texas permits the use of deadly force to stop some non-violent criminals (e.g. burglars, robbers) from escaping with property. Second, it allows deadly force over theft and criminal mischief only at night.

That last clause is pretty bizarre, but none of it adds up to anything like "needed killin". Deadly force to recover property is somewhat unusual, but that wouldn't apply to the case in the article either.

[dsfyu404ed]

>That last clause is pretty bizarre

It makes more sense if you consider it the other way around. Theft and criminal mischief are considered violent crimes for the purposes of self defense if they happen at night.

The line between theft and burglary is blurry and subjective when you're talking about situations where someone is stealing something from someone's property at night and said theft causes them to be woken up and respond. The law is basically saying that for the purposes of self defense theft can be considered burglary by default in those cases.

[ChickeNES]

Possibly a reference to this case: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/us/father-not-charged-in-...

[cjohnson318]

This is not a facet of Texas law, or reflective of law in any other state. Sometimes jurors choose not to penalize or convict a person for homicide in extenuating circumstances. This is more about the nature of trial by jury in America, than the specific legal code of Texas.

[vorpalhex]

See the recent case of the man who was convicted after punching a white supremacist in the face.. and charged with a $1 fine.

[cjohnson318]

See it where? This anecdote sounds more like a jury or a judge making an exception in an extenuating circumstance, than the exercise of an existing law, or precedent.

[vorpalhex]

How was this an exception? The attacker was charged, they chose to give a (very) lenient punishment with the circumstances considered.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/charlottes...

[rocqua]

I thought that (beyond the death penalty) the jury does not get to determine sentencing, just guilt.

[vorpalhex]

Depends on the Jurisdiction.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/charlottes...

[CydeWeys]

So killin' wasn't involved?

[dylan604]

Your going to need to show some proof that exists. Sure, there is the stand your ground type of rules, but that a self-defense situation. "Needed killin" sounds like some people outside of Texas believe Texas hyperbole.

[LorenPechtel]

Sounds like Texas got it right. Normally the law expects you to go to the police if the threat isn't imminent--but that assumes the police can do something about it. Generally they can't.

[cjohnson318]

No. This idea of "innocent because X needs killing" is a bad idea. Everyone's idea of "needs killing" is different. Imagine how this hypothetical law would work out for minorities. It would not go well.

[pavel_lishin]

[citation needed]

[wallace_f]

While this case looks to be justice, I have the fortune of experiencing real-life extreme bullying, stalking and ill will for no other reason than profit incentive and having been abused in the first place. Sometimes this sounds crazy to people and it would to me, but I think everyone sees this in school growing up, and history is all about it if you stop and think about it. I've seen examples of it, too, all the time in my life. I'd be weary of promoting justice being taken "into their own hands." But these problems are indeed very challenging, especially in a world where merit and virtue are not necessary, and even are deleterious, to your group's survival.

[HarryHirsch]

Something's wrong here, though. Why was this fellow allowed to carry on as he did into his mid-40s? Even if you are built like a bear you can't take on a whole village. Some group must have backed him up until he became intolerable even for them. Was it his clan, or the perhaps the lawmen? The article is silent, unfortunately.

[everdev]

> if the justice system cannot help you then you have to take things into your own hands

Fortunately not many people seem to feel this way, maybe because revenge doesn't work as a criminal defense.

People who have been wronged are usually highly emotional and it's hard for them to put themselves outside of their circumstances and view the incident objectively.

Justice is supposed to be blind for good reason. If we all carried out our own version of justice, I'm sure you'd eventually run into someone who thought being too loud at night should be punishable by death.

There are many instances where victims of bullying feel they have no recourse other than revenge. I don't know the answer for how to make that situation better, but I know it's not murder.

[asfarley]

This article describes a situation where a bad person did bad things, and was eventually stopped.

You are saying: "That was not the solution. But I don't know what the right solution is".

How can you possibly know that there is an alternative without knowing what it is?

I think what you are really saying is: "I have an ideological opposition to violence-as-a-tool which I cannot rationally explain". Or, "the consequences of violence-as-a-tool are so unthinkable that I choose to stop thinking."

Your line of thinking is responsible for the fact that this guy wasn't dealt with sooner. Maybe you should visit some of the victims of his behaviour before dismissing the seemingly-helpful vigilante justice in this situation.

The black-and-white line you're drawing between "blind justice" and "angry, vengeful townspeople" is not so clear in reality. Do we have AI algorithms for implementing first-principles justice? Are you so sure that first-principles justice doesn't include strategies which look like retaliation and revenge?

[rocqua]

The line of thinking could be different from

> "the consequences of violence-as-a-tool are so unthinkable that I choose to stop thinking."

And instead be something along the lines of.

Admitting exceptions where we allow violence-as-a-tool is more harmful than the harm prevented by violence here. Simply because the consequences of an exception set a precedent that lasts for a long time.

This does involve condemning people to their fate. Alternatively, you can take the position that sometimes people really should take an action they should simultaneously be condemned for.

[LorenPechtel]

It stems from a fundamental faith that there is a good solution. Therefore, any non-good action is due to a failure to look hard enough for the good solution.

[Teever]

Which is a totally reasonable position to take except it overlooks the reality of time being a finite thing.

[peteradio]

To classify this guy as a bully does no justice, he had shot numerous people and nearly beat a man to death.

[tomc1985]

Then the justice system needs to resource itself appropriately. A town menace should not be allowed to continue harassing folks because the police can't be half-assed to take care of him.

If your actions are causing others to suffer, and you're willingly doing nothing to prevent that, and you have expended the patience of those around you, then you get what's coming. Maybe he shouldn't have been such a shithead.

[Ma8ee]

I didn’t interpret the people’s action so much as revenge as a way to protect themselves. And in this instance maybe it was the most rational thing to do when the justice system failed to protect them.

[mcphage]

> particularly when these sorts of country towns are frequently mocked or derided by people like us

You bring up a good point, because that's another thing these country towns are known for—having a lot of respect for big cities and the people that live in them.

[tomc1985]

The feelings of contempt are mutual, which is fucking stupid.

[mcphage]

They are mutual, and it is stupid, but one of them is the subject of a thousand think pieces, and the other is, what, just treated like a fact of life? Have you ever read anything saying "hey country folk, maybe you shouldn't hate the people in the cities so much"?

[jcims]

This is my prevailing theory as to why minority enclaves in metropolitan areas tend to have higher violent crime. It's not socioeconomic as much as it is folks being forced to mete out justice on their own.

[persistent]

Are you sure this isn't just a bias of yours? Urban areas in the United States have a lower rate of fatal injuries due to violence than do rural areas. Perhaps this is not what you meant by "violent crime"?

I know the output of these reports is difficult to interpret but see [1]. The top decile of per-capita violent deaths are rural counties, not urban ones.

1: https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/output/m5886273...

[jcims]

It could be a bias of mine, but if averaged out over an entire county I don't think these are mutually exclusive. I'm talking about the 'rough parts of town' that are typically dominated by a minority population.

Try this:

Go find a crime map site, pick a big city and show homicides over the last year.

Then go to the racial dot map and see how it compares to the census of that locale.

http://demographics.virginia.edu/DotMap/

[its_the_future]

Are you sure socioeconomic status is not a better fit and that race is not just a proxy for it?

[jcims]

I’m not saying it’s specific races or some sneaky proxy for them, but the fact that there are different races at all likly plays some role. For example, I firmly believe if we had opposites millenia with regard to race these same patterns would emerge.

Now I have lost track of the exact scope of ‘socioeconomic status’, but i don’t think that being poor/uneducated/financially insecure explains it all either. West Virginia is the epitome of low socioeconomic status, but violent crime is relatively low.

My basic thinking is that these communities do not have a healthy, trusting relationship with law enforcement. The cause for that is complex of course, but the net effect ties back to the OP. If law enforcement isn’t a reliable or trusted resource, a community will fall back to vigilante/mob justice. Without the resources of a court and prison system to remove people from a community, that justice is going to come in the form of violence. This of course creates a negative feedback loop with law enforcement, exacerbating the problem.

On the upside, this problem might actually be easier to solve.

[duncan-donuts]

Idk, I’m kind of with you on this. I grew up in an area that was racially diverse and also shared a distrust of the police and legal system. Minorities in the United States are being shot and killed by police at an alarming rate. I’m not convinced that every urban community holistically decides they must take justice into their own hands, but I, anecdotally, grew up in a place where people do take matters into their own hands. Again, I’m not saying you’re onto something here, but I do know many people who would rather fight in the streets over fight in a court room.

[codyb]

I very much think socioeconomic status is more likely a better fit.

I have a feeling if you did the same test but instead of “crime” you did “wealth percentile” you’d probably end up with the same results in the United States though unfortunately.

Not a lot of well off minority neighborhoods throughout the country and the wealth disparity even with all the poor white people is very real.

[thaumasiotes]

> I very much think socioeconomic status is more likely a better fit.

Believe it or not, this exact question has been studied pretty intensively for decades.

The predictive value of race is much higher than the predictive value of socioeconomic status.

[mcbits]

What is the definition of "violence" for that chart? Specifically, does it include self-inflicted violence (suicide) and vehicular homicide (drunk driving)? If so, it is much less surprising.

[tptacek]

From CDC: a violent death is defined as a death resulting from the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or a group or community

[ravar]

Against oneself, so it includes suicide.

[persistent]

I believe it does, yes. "All Causes". The problem with excluding it is there's not enough underlying data to get WISQARS to cough up a county-level breakdown. Explore it yourself by starting at https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/

[parsnips]

Great, now run the numbers on per capita per square mile and get back to us.

[twic]

What on earth does "per capita square mile" mean?

[parsnips]

Comparing urban and rural and using per-capita numbers is a fallacious argument. You must control for land area. For example a square mile that is labeled “urban” vs square mile labeled “rural” the numbers per-capita tilt homicides way in favor of urban areas... and its not even close.

https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-u...

[jcwilde]

I fail to see how "per capita per square mile" is a useful measure.

_Anything_ measured in that way would show densely populated area vastly outnumbering rural areas, perhaps with the exclusion of things that essentially don't exist in cites, such as "number of farms per capita per square mile".

The measure appears to be concocted specifically for Lying With Statistics™.

[hinkley]

I think I'm hung up on the same thing, chief.

Why per capita per square mile instead of per capita? Why do the miles enter into it? Because of more interactions? I'd like to see just the numbers per capita. I suspect they're fairly close.

[nickpsecurity]

Although I don't know, I do know that distance or location matters a lot. Statistically, one can avoid murder easily just by location. Sometimes not even very far away from hotspots.

https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-u...

[tom_]

Per capita per square mile.

[persistent]

Why?

[parsnips]

because your narrative is false when accounting for land area/population density.

[Causality1]

Considering he referred to minority concentrations in urban cities compared to the rest of the city, I believe the bias would be on your part since he didn't bring up rural areas at all.

[hinkley]

Americans have a real problem with proportions.

If you put a million people in a city and 100 of them die of a flu, everyone screams epidemic. You spread those same people out over all the small towns in a state, and 200 of them die, it's just fine.

Because, I suspect, we often associate statistics with a location rather than a cross section of society. We think "someone in my town was murdered", not "the murder rate is 1/250,000".

[fastball]

I think this is a problem of humanity, not a problem of Americans.

[Retric]

Alternatively, crimes are more common in metropolitan areas due to increased contact.

Crimes are also more likely to be reported in poor metropolitan areas. Poor minorities are more like to stay in metropolitan areas. Resulting in a rather insidious bias that's hard to adjust for.

http://www.hngn.com/articles/75816/20150309/dea-was-told-not...

PS: It is also easier to hide a body in the country, so missing persons can hide many murders.

[jacobolus]

> crimes are more common in metropolitan areas due to increased contact

Is there evidence for this contact theory? It doesn’t match my understanding of crime patterns. For example there are many very dense cities around the world without much crime, and some sparsely populated rural areas with lots of crime.

A Google search turns up

http://science.time.com/2013/07/23/in-town-versus-country-it...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/big-city-crime-murder-rates-a...

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/01/are-big-citie...

[AcerbicZero]

There are many more variables to correct for than just population density but this study does a pretty good job covering that and then some. In short, yes cities have significantly more crime (both violent and property) than rural areas.

https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/86153/IJRC_Ward-eta...

There are huge numbers of trends in the crime data depending on you want to look at it, so I'm always open to changing my mind on topics like this, if there is good data to support it.

[jacobolus]

> The average number of residents age 14 - 17 for urban counties was 10,879.74 (SD = 25,923.60), far larger than the mean of 987.32 (SD = 760.86) for rural counties. Likewise, the average number of residents age 18 - 24 for urban counties (18,752.97, SD = 41,994.59) was much greater than rural counties (M = 1,625.68, SD = 1,417.78).

If there are literally 10 times fewer young people, it’s not too surprising that the rural counties had fewer crimes per capita. With that big a disparity it’s kind of shocking that the urban crime rate is only 50% higher.

I hadn’t realized that US rural counties have so few young people. It sounds like the population of those places is on the verge of collapse.

If the median age in rural counties is ~40, there are few small children, but only 2.5% of the people are 14–24, it sounds like there must be a pretty large number of 25–40 year olds though. Has there just been a sharp demographic break within the last generation with all of the young people suddenly moving away, or are large numbers of 30-somethings moving from the city to rural towns?

[runako]

> the population of those places is on the verge of collapse.

That collapse has been underway for a couple of generations now.

>Has there just been a sharp demographic break within the last generation with all of the young people suddenly moving away, or are large numbers of 30-somethings moving from the city to rural towns?

Depending on how you count, young people have been leaving farms for 4 or 5 generations now. Part of this is down to the increased efficiency of agriculture, which means fewer people are needed to produce food, which means fewer agricultural jobs. Most job creation happens in cities now, so young people who are not inheriting a family business tend to move toward cities. Richard Florida and others have written extensively about this demographic shift.

[hinkley]

In addition to hiding evidence, the likelihood of a witness in a low population area is lower. The internal narrative that you might get away with your crime (whether that is true or not) could be pretty compelling.

[Stronico]

The book Ghettoside by Jill Leovy goes into that in quite a bit of detail. Her conclusion - yes, very much, with a strong overlap between community and extended family. An excellent book.

[tr3ndyBEAR]

It was already said that violent crime rates are actually higher in rural areas than urban ones, but it should also be mentioned that areas with high minority populations, especially black communities, are more heavily policed.

In addition, studies like this one (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1745-9125.1...) have found that the relationship between crime rates and undocumented immigrants actually decreases

As someone who came to America undocumented at the age of 5, my personal intuition is that undocumented people tend to be more fearful of authority and therefore more likely to avoid getting in trouble

[nickpsecurity]

It's probably also the thug culture. Going to a black school for years, I got to watch the transformation happen for many of them. Young people usually like imitating rebels and cool people. For whites, it was rockstars that had money, drugs, sex, and ran from the law. The rap stars those black students idolized were the same with two differences:

1. They encouraged or at least bragged on beating folks down or killing them for respect and money. They emphasized the need for this. They did it to people in their own neighborhoods rather than other areas and groups like whites preferred.

2. Many of the gangs recruiting with such ideology had a rule where you couldn't leave. If oppression or lack of resources started it, the person who had a come up with still expected to commit the crimes backing up their group. We've seen this plenty with celebs in hip hop with Tupac gunned down over a rivalry.

3. Many of these areas discourage reading/literacy since it's a "white thing" vs oral traditions of black culture. The local gangs might even beat up kids for carrying books. In those areas, this further contributes to poor test scores and other things that hold people back.

The more apologetic sources don't bring this stuff up with three getting virtually no reporting. They want to shift all the blame toward white folks instead of assigning it appropriately. I keep bringing it up. It keeps coming back to me, too, with each hiring wave at my company with young blacks having one or more people that believe the same bullshit. Fortunately, they're far from a majority. Most aren't anything like them. They tell them they're idiots. Might drive them away more, though.

Of course, don't take my word for it. In Memphis, TN, they'll tell you if you ask:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxBIVnjlKos

https://wreg.com/2014/09/30/young-men-say-kroger-mob-attack-...

Although they mention cops as usual, they also emphasize how fun and profitable the drugs and violence are. Most of them get a kick out of it. It's power that's easy to have. Just have greater numbers than and some weapons for a target. Bam! Bang! Quick high they don't get solving bigger problems.

Also, the mindset works against most solutions people describe here which assume they even want a regular job. The locals tell me they're independent businessmen ("my own boss")who go for high gains despite the high risks, "just like stocks" one said. Some of the small-time dealers make $50,000 a year without a degree. They said they were on-call and on-guard at all times, though. Gotta work to make that money. Just not legal work cuz then they making nothing while other people make big money off their backs. Doesn't sound too far from the logic of founders set to be billionaires while their workers make average or less wages.

[fortran77]

It also seems that this is a little bit different from usual "lynch mobs" or vigilante justice because it was an act of self-defense. This man was going around shooting people and was actively making threats (though not at the exact moment he was shot).

This makes it a little more morally justified than shooting someone who committed some real or perceived wrong, but isn't a current threat to others.

They stopped him because he was dangerous.

[philwelch]

I think I’ve heard stories of eg battered wives killing their husbands and then claiming self-defense because they reasonably feared for their lives (and perhaps their children’s lives) in the long run.

[tootie]

The fact that the Sheriff was involved in the conspiracy is fishy.

[saidajigumi]

Or completely expected, if the broader narrative of a legal system that has ceded to lawlessness is true. Law enforcement is on the literal front-lines in dealing with violent repeat offenders as described here.

[whenanother]

this is promoting a logical fallacy in the belief that there exist a perfect system. this is the same argument that many who are trying to deregulate the government have with the ultimate intention of privatizing everything.

[ProAm]

> That doesn't make the actions acceptable, of course. But it does put a spotlight on the importance of having a working legal system that provides some reasonable level of protection to the larger community.

This man was tried and convicted by a jury of his peers, it was just in a different courtroom.

[jgwil2]

That's the kind of logic used to justify lynchings. We have a legal system that enforces a certain burden of proof, that takes place in a courtroom where strict procedure is enforced by an ostensibly impartial judge, and evidence is weighed by an impartial jury. The system is carefully set up to balance the rights of the accused against the interests of the community. It may not work all the time, but it exists for a very good reason, and mob justice is no substitute.

[ProAm]

I know on paper that is how it's supposed to happen but if we are honest it doesn't always happen that way.

[AndrewBissell]

When the legal system is perverted by local corruption and nepotism, allowing bad actors to run roughshod over their victims, are they supposed to just lie down and take it out of dedication to an abstract principle which has been wholly betrayed in practice?

[MFLoon]

I mean, they should not just lie down, but I think the more lawful and orderly approach would be to appeal to a higher tier of authority that's supposed to be available within the legal system. Of course, easier said than done, but still I think that's what the "right thing" would have been.

[ceejayoz]

The Constitution provides for an impartial jury, along with other important factors. A lynch mob is no such thing.

[rocqua]

How many of the mob were directly impacted by the bully?

I could imagine having witnessed the bully be a bully, not being a victim, and still deciding the bully needs to die. The decision can be made not based on the desire to defend yourself, and instead based on the desire to defend others / the desire to prevent unjust behavior.

[inscionent]

This was a mob execution.

[r00fus]

A jury that is inconsistent and hard to rouse. The subsequent crimes show the criminals their understanding of the broken justice system