Free Republic

Morelia (Mexico) (AFP) - Hundreds of armed vigilantes have taken control of a town in a western Mexico state plagued by drug cartels after clashes with an armed group that left three people dead, officials said. The Michoacan state government said in a statement that the "self-defense" units seized the town hall and main square of Tancitaro on Saturday. Some 400 vigilantes kicked out the municipal police and took over security in the town, a source in the CISEN intelligence agency told AFP. Before taking Tancitaro, the self-defense force exchanged fire with suspected organized crime members in the nearby town...

After all of the evidence, six women in a Florida courtroom will decide if a Community Watch volunteer went too far in taking the life of a teenager walking through a neighborhood on a rainy evening. It happened there. It could happen here. "I really encourage neighborhoods to get involved and report suspicious activities," says Harold Medlock, the Fayetteville police chief. "But that is where it needs to stop." Be vigilant, he says, but do not become a vigilante, else you may become another George Zimmerman, 29, whose confrontation with Trayvon Martin left the 17-year-old with a bullet through the...

Stockholm. Faced by another night of terror at the hands of predominantly immigrant rioters, Swedes grown tired of the police’s inability to put an end to the unrest took to the streets Friday night to defend their neighborhoods. The vigilantes were described as a motley crew of homeowners and concerned citizens, as well as neo-Nazi activists and football hooligans. In the Stockholm suburb of Tumba the police decided to abandon their earlier non-intervention policy as a large group of police officers rounded up and dispersed a group of vigilantes trying to fend off rioters. The decision to round up vigilantes...

UPDATED:09:42 EST, 28 March 2013Thousands of armed vigilantes have taken over a town in Mexico and arrested police officers after their 'commander' was killed and dumped in the street. The self described 'community police' and arrested 12 officers and the town's former director of public security, who they accuse of taking part in the killing of Guadalupe Quinones Carbajal, 28, on behalf of a local organised crime group.

Tired of the scourge of organized crime, civilians in two rural towns in southwestern Mexico have taken matters into their own hands over the last two weeks. Since the second week of January, around 800 masked and armed residents have set up vigilante groups who are manning checkpoints, imposing curfews and arresting alleged criminals. This unofficial police force says they are providing security for the municipalities of Ayutla de los Libres and Teconoapa in Guerrero state, an area that has been hit hard by Mexico's drug violence. More than 70,000 people killed across the country since 2006 and residents in...

The citizens of Seattle don't take kindly to crime in their city. Pedestrians in downtown Seattle jumped into action on Friday after an armed thief robbed a jewelry store - with a group of bystanders stopping the suspect and holding the man down in a scary sidewalk melee in front of the Hotel MAX until police could arrive. A hotel doorman was shot in the scuffle but the suspect was arrested and the loot he attempted to run off with was recovered.

Mourners for a man who was killed in a shooting earlier this month apparently beat up a man they thought was intruding on their loved one's funeral early Friday afternoon in northwest Houston. The attack occurred at the Paradise Funeral Home at 10401 West Montgomery while family and friends were holding a service for Claude Kibbie. Kibbie died July 26, a day after he had been shot in the head while driving away from an argument in the 9500 block of Trudy. Police said at the time they had no suspect or motive in the case. Mourners at the funeral...

Imagine if you caught a man molesting your five-year-old daughter. Or if you discovered that a man was pimping out your 17-year-old daughter. What would you do? When a 23-year-old Texas father heard his little girl crying behind a barn, when he saw her being sexually violated by Jesus Mora Flores, he beat the deviant to death. And when San Francisco parents Barry Gilton and Lupe Mercado were unable to rescue their teen daughter from her pimp, Calvin Sneed, by peaceable means, they shot and killed him. Both the Texas dad and parents Gilton and Mercado were accused of taking...

Roseanne Barr Becomes Second Leftist Celebrity to Threaten George Zimmerman's Parents By Matthew Sheffield | March 29, 2012 | 16:54 Formerly relevant comedian Roseanne Barr has become the second leftist entertainment celebrity to threaten the family of George Zimmerman, the accused shooter in the death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin by posting the home address of his parents on Twitter. While she quickly deleted her tweet after an onslaught of criticism by her 110,000+ followers, Barr continued to defend her action, stating that it "was good to let ppl know that no one can hide anymore." She also threatened to...

A school-cafeteria lunch lady and her husband have received hate mail, unwanted visits from reporters and fearful inquiries from neighbors — all because their Sanford-area address is being disseminated on Twitter as belonging to Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman, her son said late Tuesday. The woman, 70, who has a heart condition, and her husband, 72, have temporarily moved to a hotel to avoid the spotlight and possible danger, said son Chip Humble of Longwood. The woman has another son named William George Zimmerman who lived with her in 1995 and still lives in Central Florida. He is no relation...

Foes of illegal immigration are up in arms over plans for a weekend disaster exercise in western Iowa with a fictitious scenario in which white supremacists shoot dozens of people amid rising tensions involving racial minorities and illegal immigrants. The exercise is planned for Saturday at Treynor High School in Pottawattamie County and will involve more than 300 people, confirmed Doug Reed, the lead exercise planner for the county's emergency management agency. Some 30 to 40 "victims" will be transported to area hospitals.

VANCOUVER -- RCMP are warning the public to be on the lookout for U.S. fugitives John McCluskey and Casslyn Welch. These individuals are wanted by U.S. authorities after escaping from an Arizona prison on July 30. They may also be involved in a homicide, police warn. Law enforcement on both sides of the border are on high alert. While there is no information to confirm these fugitives have entered Canada, their whereabouts are unknown and police fear they may have crossed the border undetected.

PHOENIX -- Federal law enforcement officers have been sent to Arizona as fears surface of possible vigilante violence, experts said. Mid-April is a time of year law enforcement officers across the country, and in Arizona, are on high alert. "It's a time at which not only the Anti-Defamation League, but law enforcement, and I mean law enforcement at all levels -- local, state and federal -- are geared up,” said Bill Straus, the Arizona Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League. The reason: there have been serious attacks on Americans by their fellow citizens during April. April 19 is the anniversary...

A Minneapolis man is charged with robbery after police say store employees and customers held him until officers arrived on scene. Reginald Calhoun was arrested at the Family Dollar Store at 1010 East Lake Street in Minneapolis on Monday. Police say he took off after he robbed and assaulted a clerk. He didn't get far because customers and employees caught him before he tried to get away in a taxi. Police say the taxi driver was not aware Calhoun was allegedly involved in the robberies. Minneapolis Lt. Mike Fossum praised the citizens for their bravery. "They did a great job....

CULIACAN, Mexico — A shooting that killed eight people partying on a seaside boulevard in northwestern Mexico may have been the work of vigilantes targeting car thieves, a prosecutor said. The gunmen drove up in a white SUV and fired on the festive crowd without saying a word, Sinaloa state deputy Attorney General Jose Luis Leyva said Sunday. A 15-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl were among the youngest killed Saturday night in the Pacific coast town of Navolato. Four people were wounded. Also among the dead were two brothers in their 30s who had a record of car theft,...

A militia of fishermen organized by regional leaders in the Somali coastal towns of Alula and Bargaal in the African country's northern Puntland region has captured 12 armed pirates in two boats. The leaders of the militia reported their success to the BBC on April 28. Though — for want of a better word — the militiamen have been described as "vigilantes" by the media. Given the state of lawlessness in Somalia, they probably have as legitimate a mandate to deal with the piracy problem as any other entity in the beleaguered state on the Horn of Africa. "They decided...

Mountain View police said someone is attacking registered sex offenders in the city and the attacks may be related. Two crimes against sex offenders have taken place in the past month. Detectives described the attacks as similar. The first crime occurred on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2008, at 9:39 a.m., at an apartment complex on the west side of the city, officers said. A witness saw a man carrying a bat and placing a Molotov cocktail-type device at the front door of a registered sex offender. When confronted by the witness, the man indicated he was targeting the person living in...

CONTEMPLATING the Clinton-Obama racial war, some Republicans were so excited you’d have thought Ronald Reagan had risen from the dead to slap around a welfare deadbeat. Never mind that the G.O.P. is running on empty, with no ideas beyond the incessant repetition of Reagan’s name. A battle over race-and-gender identity politics among the Democrats, with its acrid scent from the 1960s, might be just the spark for a Republican comeback. (As long as the G.O.P.’s own identity politics, over religion, don’t flare up.) Alas, these hopes faded on Tuesday night. First, the debating Democrats declared a truce, however fragile, in...

Police: Burned, Headless Body Of Sex Offender FoundPOSTED: 12:08 pm EST November 8, 2007 UPDATED: 3:52 pm EST November 8, 2007 NORTHVILLE TOWNSHIP -- Construction crews found a torched and headless body Thursday morning on Hidden Ridge Drive in Northville Township. Police were able to identify the body as 26-year-old Daniel Gene-Vincent Sorensen by using a partial fingerprint technique, despite the severe burns on Sorensen’s hands. Police said the severely burned hands seemed to be an effort to hide his identity. Police confirmed that Sorensen was a registered sex offender. A neighbor called to report a fire on Wednesday night,...

VILLA NUEVA, Guatemala - Slum dwellers armed with shotguns have taken to Guatemala's streets to hand vigilante justice to youth gangs as voters sick of crime increasingly back a hardline ex-general's run for president. Roving bands of masked men communicating over walkie-talkies and armed with sticks, machetes and shotguns patrol the poor Villa Nueva slum on the edge of Guatemala City at night looking for members of infamous "Mara" gangs. The well-organized patrols, whose secretive members are suspicious of outsiders, killed at least one gang member, David Castillo alias "The Siren", earlier this month. "It's another war," said resident Sheni...