Posted on 08/28/2007 3:25:41 PM PDT by lowbridge
Tarred, feathered and tied to a lamppost: Justice for a drug dealer on the streets of Ulster
Tied to a lamppost, he stands with his head and upper body covered in tar and feathers. A makeshift placard hung around his neck with a piece of string announces the reason for his treatment.
(The man is forced to carry a sign detailing his alleged crime)
This man was subjected to the painful tarring and feathering on the Taughmonagh estate, a loyalist stronghold in the city.
Locals had accused the victim, who is in his thirties, of being a drug dealer. And when police allegedly did not act, they took the law into their own hands.
Two masked men tied up the accused victim, poured tar over his head and then covered him in white feathers, apparently from a pillow case.
A small crowd including women and children looked on as the men then adorned their victim with a placard reading: "I'm a drug dealing scumbag".
Pictures of the punishment were sent to a local newspaper.
It is a very public humiliation, and a medieval one. Almost ten years since Northern Ireland's Troubles officially ended, this remains the crude face of justice on the streets of south Belfast.
(Local residents throw feathers over the alleged drug dealer)
The incident harks back to the worst days of the Troubles, when republican and loyalist paramilitaries would routinely punish alleged criminals. Untrusting of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, IRA enforcers would deliver brutal street justice to anyone who contravened their rules.
Sometimes they punished real wrongdoers, but often the victims were those who had simply got in the way of the IRA's own criminal activities.
Kneecapping - in which a victim's kneecaps were blown out with a shotgun - was one of the IRA's most infamous tactics.
The terrorists would also tar and feather Catholic women accused of forming relationships with British soldiers. Yesterday the loyalist Ulster Defence Association denied all involvement in the tarring and feathering, despite its strong presence on the Taughmonagh estate.
Indeed, one political analyst claimed it had been carried out by locals who had become frustrated at the lack of police action over a drug dealer.
(The man is left tied to a lamppost)
Frankie Gallagher, of the Ulster Political Research Group, said: "The UDA told the local community to go to the police about this. The community responded in the way it did because it had no confidence in the police."
By the time the Police Service of Northern Ireland was made aware of the incident, the victim - and his two attackers - had gone.
Margaret Ritchie, Northern Ireland's social development minister, said: "This kind of behaviour has no place in a civilised society."
Tarring and feathering has been used as a punishment for almost 1,000 years. During the third crusade to the Holy Land, King Richard ruled that any Royal Navy sailors caught stealing should be tarred and feathered.
And in 1623, the Bishop of Halberstadt in Germany used the technique to discipline a group of misbehaving nuns.
The punishment is probably best known, however, from its widespread use in America during the War of Independence in the 1770s, when it was used to punish those accused of loyalty to the British colonial power.
The victim was usually paraded around the streets in a cart as a warning to other would-be traitors.
Actually, rival gangs would have blown his head off and dumped his body in a burning dumpster. Or do you suggest this is the new kinder, gentler gang warfare?
The only difference: in this country, MS-13 et al carry heavy arms and kill without a second thought.
So what do you suggest?
Pitting one gang against another would be better..
i.e. Vigilante drive bys dressed in gang costumes/colors....
FYI.
Ahhhhhh....street justice. Makes me smile.
First we need to target one (drug) gang and show no mercy. My choice would be MS-13. We need a national law that defines membership in MS-13 as equivalent to being a terrorist. I would be in favor of execution within 24 hours.
Draw and quarter.
"I want that problem like Maria taken care of Mother Superior!"
Love how they called Catholics Terrorists; what about their own?
What do you want us to do? Feather their nest?
I find it curious that people who cheer this action consider themselves to be law and order types.
Here the drug dealers are just as armed as the rest of the populace. You’ll probably see the homicide rate skyrocket if it happens.
Well, Bill can get annoying, and his accusation of FR being a hate site was pathetic. Yet I can think of loads of TV personalities who have done far worse harm to this nation where I can name a few good things O'Reilly has actually done (please don't ask me to remember and list them, though - LOL!)
"What? They were out of Bush costumes! Where's my cheap hooker?"
Until it happens to you.
I must have missed the part of the story where this guy got a fair trial from the folks who tarred and feathered him. No trial, no justice.
I understand the urge toward so-called "street justice", but a community where a person can arbitrarily be seized and punished by some group of self-appointed enforcers of the law without an opportunity to defend his innocence before an impartial court is no community at all; it is merely an organized mob. If the police and courts are incapable of providing an accused lawbreaker with a fair trial, then it's up to the people in a given community to establish some sort of court and try cases based upon facts. Justice must be procedural or it is not justice at all.
People who deal drugs to children are scum, deserving of the severest of punishments — but allowing a mob to become judge, jury, and executioner is a far greater threat to law-abiding citizens than any drug dealer. Today the mob tars and feathers this guy; tomorrow, the mob might come after you.
Yes I did here about this one. Made me laugh - that is if he actually was a drug dealer, in which case well done those folks.
PING
Works for me.
Hey, it's not like they put a pair of panties on his head.
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