Would you be a vigilante?

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"Once the accused was in custody, the fatherly duty was to help in the healing of the child, not committing murder."

Double naught-I do understand where you're coming from in your statement and to a large extent agree with you. If there is a saving grace for the child, he knows without a doubt that the person who abused him so unspeakably is DEAD, and can never harm him again. That could also be construed as helping to heal the child.

We may never know what kind of emotional state the child was brought back in. I thank the good Lord, Buddha, terra-firma and anyone else's name I can invoke that none of my children ever had to experience what this child did.

Could be that the child had nightmares which pushed the father over the edge. I could see myself there as the father of 4. Bad enough the child was raped repeatedly, but when your kid calls out to you for help, you will take on hell itself bare handed.

I believe the father should have been provided the mental help he needs instead of a court appearance. It is easy to talk about what you would do in a situation, but think about the rage and the helplessness most parents are going to feel in a situation like this. Some of this child abduction is forseeable, yet we hear cases a lot where a trusted friend of the family turns out to be fertilizer material.....
 
If this creep was let out immediately, the local governments could justify higher taxes to protect us from him. The father disrupted some of the pressure for more and bigger government, though they actually have no obligation to protect us as individuals. I would not have been be surprised if this man had gotted a worse punishment than if he killed an innocent child.
 
I'd like to think I wouldn't kill that guy just because I was given a golden opportuity to do so. I'd like to think that I would let the guy get tried and sentenced by the appropriate legal authorities.

I also know that child molesters who molest kids with single-digit ages often get single-digit sentences and early release for good behavior (since they've got no kiddies in prison to molest, of course). So my confidence that such a criminal would get an acceptable degree of punishment (i.e. perpetual confinement or death) is pretty slim.

I imagine the dad in question looked at the situation the same way. Your kid getting kidnapped & raped repeatedly isn't apt to make you an optimist, and there isn't much reason to be optimistic about the bastard in question getting appropriate punishment anyway.
 
I think the question here is, what's the difference between the bereaved father doing the molester, or a "vigilante" 9someone without an immediate stake) doing the deed. Either way, the molester is dead. The vigilante can certainly claim to be "protecting society".

How about if the molester stands trial, is convicted, sentenced to what most sane people would feel is a ridiculously low term (read: pretty much anything short of life with no possibility of parole), and then strolling out of prison a couple of years later. Daddy pops him then, exclaiming "How is this justice?"
 
Thanks for the replies all,

I know "vigilante" is the wrong term for the father in this case, and Bernard Goetz as well. It is the term A&E's production used.

The legal system in this country is NOT a justice system. A famous judge once said to a lawyer..."This is not a court of justice, it is a court of law." I can't attribute the quote as my memory fails me at this time.

To my thinking...Goetz was acting in self defense at the moment he shot...he was no vigilante.

I also believe the father of the victimized boy was no vigilante. He killed the focus of the nightmares his son was sure to have. His son is now assured, that he will never again be victimized by this sick peice of filth.

To say that the molester was no longer a threat is like saying a volcano will never erupt again. Molesters have the single highest rate of offending again. If not this man's child then likely another would be victimized.

The judge accepted the plea arrangement from the DA and the defense attorney, and gave what, to my mind was the best sentence he could hand down in that situation.

Had I sat on a Grand Jury, I would have voted for "No True Bill"...basically, my vote would be not to charge the father with anything. Then again, I am old school...I believe the father did the RIGHT thing, if not the LEGAL thing.

Further...I would be willing to accept whatever punishment was handed me by a court if I were in a similar situation as the father in this case was. I could hold my head up high knowing I acted rightly by my own set of values.

I am a retired federal officer. I have 12 years of service. Two in uniform, and 10 more after that in federal service. I am also, and more importantly a father. I know the law...but I also know right from wrong.

Mallum En Se...wrong by it's very nature.

Mallum Se Prohibitum...wrong only because the law says it is wrong.
 
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I say pop a cap.

Otherwise we go to trial, LEO forgot to Mirandize, oops! Perp walks.
Then you got all the bother of tracking his azz down.

To quote the immortal Tuco:

"When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk."


G
 
"This is not a court of justice, it is a court of law." I can't attribute the quote as my memory fails me at this time.
Click to expand...
I believe that Learned Hand is the proper attribution.
He also said “The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not too sure that it is right.”
 
I read somewhere..

onetime a method of handling those who have harmed your family members if they have been caught.

Leading up to and during the trial make loud, public proclamations of forgiving the person, stating that you fully believe in the system of laws, etc. If the person is let off or given any sentence less than the death penalty again publicly proclaim your faith in the system and state you've forgiven the person and just want to get to the business of healing your family.

If the person ever sees light outside the incarceration system you quietly snag him off the street in the not too distant future and make his last memories of this life ones of extreme pain. You then bury the results in some hollow and get on with your life.

That's what I read somewhere onetime...

migoi
 
I fear for anyone ballsy enough to touch my daughter. I have a whole lot of property and in a situation like that, a whole of time to do anything I want to the sick mfer. He be praying for death just for relief from my wrath.
 
Our justice system cannot work if take it into our own hands.
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LOL our justice system doesn't work right to begin with. I have nothing but support for anyone who decides to take actions into their own hands. Again the justice system does not work. Just ask Jessica Lundsfords family!!
 
I have a whole lot of property and in a situation like that, a whole of time to do anything I want to the sick mfer. He be praying for death just for relief from my wrath.
Click to expand...

His pain won't end yours, or your daughter's, so why bother?

If you got garbage, you don't kick it around the house, you take it out. How is the above any different?
 
I'm not a parent, but I do have nieces, nephews, children of friends and 2 god-children, and I can honestly say that if anyone were to harm them, they have forfiet their lives. It wouldn't be legal, but it would be right.

As for the child molester receiving justice at the hands of fellow cons, that is for shiznit. If that were true, how come there are so many registered sex offenders/pedophiles in the national registry? Obviously they survived the system.

Besides, by my way of thinking, to do nothing would be a bigger waste of my life. A man without honor is not really a man, just an adult male.

Jubei
 
Just as the rapist was guilty of rape the father was, by the evidence provide guilty of homicide.

Any jury that would not find him guilty would have to be lacking in ethics.

Fortunately , I believe, from an emotional some things are just the right thing to do perspective the judge determined it to be misdemeanor murder.

Many years ago there was an Italian restaurant owner in Orlando who's family was the victim of a home invasion type robbery.

Apparently his intell was better than the police dept's because he was able to find them and break at least one's leg with a ball bat.

I have always respected him not only for taking care of business in a way that would insure that other's would think twice about messing with his family.
But even more because he admitted his guilt and proudly did his time without whining about it.
I think he got about a year county time
 
I am amazed by the folks here who don't know what a vigilante is. How it can be claimed that the boy's father was acting in self defense of the boy's fears or in self defense of society by the boy's father shooting the Satan's Spawn who was in custody of law enforcement is just plain wrong.

Simply put, the boy's father was a vigilante. At the time of the shooting, there was no threat. He acted by administering 'justice' without due process and by our system, he over-administered. We have no death sentence for child molesting.

chris in va stated...
Interestingly, many state handgun laws allow for shooting someone stealing your kid...
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True, but the operative aspect is "stealing" or as "in the process of taking" and does NOT allow for shooting somebody that had previously stolen the now returned child. Satan's Spawn was not currently engaged in the commission of a crime when he was killed. Lethal force was not justified.

I don't see why so many of you have a problem calling the guy a vigilante. There is nothing in the law that is going to allow for a person to shoot another person who is in custody. The father most definitely was acting outside of the law. It is just that plain and simple.

If you administer 'justice' in a manner that foregoes due process of the law, then you are committing a vigilante act. Why is that hard to understand?
 
Healing begins with the eradication of the nightmares. As Forest Gump says, "That's all I have to say about that.".
 
Double Naught Spy, don't be amazed. What the father did was purely and simply an act of revenge.

Again, a vigilante is one who takes the law into his own hands in the perceived or real absence of regularized law enforcement. It is most commonly an ongoing processs rather than one isolated instance.

I'm reasonably confident that my "Definition" fits with history, a dictionary or an encyclopedia...

:), Art
 
Main Entry: vig·i·lan·te
Pronunciation: "vi-j&-'lan-tE
Function: noun
Etymology: Spanish, watchman, guard, from vigilante vigilant, from Latin vigilant-, vigilans
: a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law appear inadequate); broadly : a self-appointed doer of justice
- vig·i·lan·tism /-'lan-"ti-z&m/ noun

He does fit the broad definition of a vigilante
 
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