Vigilante neighbors in court for branding molester

Detroit Free Press ^ | August 6, 2002 | L.L. BRASIER

[kcpopps]

Three Pontiac men took the law -- and a blistering hot metal spatula -- into their hands when they learned a neighbor had been regularly sodomizing his 7- and 10-year-old nephews.

Two of the men held down the uncle while the third pressed the smoking spatula on his genitals, buttocks, stomach and legs. They paused only long enough to reheat the spatula on the kitchen stove for repeated branding before tossing the uncle out onto the sidewalk, breaking his arm.

[JMJ333]

Read the article.

In June 2001, Gibson, 38, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct for the attacks on his nephews and was ordered to serve an 8- to 40-year prison term.

[Consort]

[Nate505]

Hmmm.....since he pleaded guilty before, it's probably more than likely he did (why was the guy out of jail when he pleaded guilty in 2001?). Still, why bother with a criminal justice system if we are just going to go the vigilante way?

[Doctor Stochastic]

For vigilantes, the accusation is sufficient.

[kcpopps]

...illustrate how frustrated people get with the Justice system. We see way too many clearly guilty individuals either plea bargaining to wrist slap sentences or like Avila, getting off entirely.

I think you've hit the target there. People are frustrated and losing faith in the system to punish the guilty

[Nate505]

Oh, never mind.....this is making more sense now. He made the guilty plea after he was branded. Yeah, it is tough to have sympathy for the guy. Still, I'm not comfortable with the idea of vigilante justice. Many innocent people could be hurt by mobs who can act on pure passion instead of facts alone...

[jackbill]

These folks should have been aware of the Three S's - Shoot, Shovel and Shut up.

[grumpster-dumpster]

"Vigilante justice is never a good idea, IMO."

For the purpose of discussion, I respectfully disagree.

The very term "Vigilanteism" denotes a watchfulness againt evil, and an effort to stamp it out... to protect, if you will.

We live in a "Nation of Laws," but our "Justice" system is less concerned with justice as it is with law (in and of itself). Therefore, the whole reason for having laws has been subverted. Laws are established to protect the innocent, and avenge the victim... they should not be used to "protect" the law and shelter the guilty.

When government can not, or will not, or refuses, to protect the people; then the people have every right to protect themselves and the innocent.

The problem with the term "vigilante" is that we have been indoctrinated into thinking of it in a negative term. The word itself brings up visions of a "quick-judgement" based not on facts, but perceptions. IMHO we need to rethink the term in a better light. When properly used, vigilanteism can be a great deterent to those that would harm the innocent.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

The "criminal justice system" is nothing but job security for tens of thousands of mediocrities (I include judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and the whole sorry crew).

The aim is not really "justice" (whatever that may be), it is job security, pure and simple.

I vote against EVERY sitting judge at every election. Of course, in a lot of States, the lawyers have fixed it so that you don't get to vote on them. Too bad.

[Wallace T.]

This looks, like the case of the two motorists killed in Chicago, like black-on-black vigilantism. I understand that Pontiac, Michigan, has a large black population, and the given name of at least one of the vigilantes (Dewon) suggests he was African American. They may call their acts street justice, but it is really the code of the Old South, from where most Northern blacks migrated in the early and mid-1900s. Vigilante enforcement was alive and well in the states from which their parents or grandparents emigrated, at the time of their migration from the cotton fields to the auto, tire, and steel factories.

African Americans in the pre-civil rights South were sometimes victims of this on-the-spot "justice" by whites. It appears as if in both the Chicago and Pontiac cases, some blacks at the beginning of the 21st Century practice the same vigilantism by which their forbears were victimized in the early and mid 20th Century.

[kcpopps]

The very term "Vigilanteism" denotes a watchfulness againt evil, and an effort to stamp it out... to protect, if you will.

A tough version of Neighborhood Watch? :^)

[AnAmericanMother]

[an amused spectator]

Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Ken Frazee said that no crime, even horrific assaults on children, merits vigilante justice.

Another member of the Club shoots his lying mouth off about the crumbling remnants of the American "justice" system.

We all know that Ken Frazee's family and associates are safe from criminality, because of the extreme penalties levied for messing with members of the Club. The rest of us are on our own.

[kcpopps]

This looks, like the case of the two motorists killed in Chicago, like black-on-black vigilantism.

I have no idea of race involved in this case. I'm not sure I would classify the Chicago case as vigilantism though. That seems to me more just a case of uncontrolled and unrestrained rage.

[an amused spectator]

God, the phony hypocrisy of the lying prosecutor just gets better:

"I don't condone what the victim did," Frazee said, after Gibson's attackers were led away. "It was repulsive. But he was punished at the hands of these defendants -- tortured -- and the law does not allow for that."

But we're going to imprison these boys in a situation where they could get gang-raped in prison, and Ken Frazee's "law" DOES allow for that.

But that's not torture. No sirree.

[Britton J Wingfield]

I don't condone what the victim did," Frazee said, after Gibson's attackers were led away. "It was repulsive. But he was punished at the hands of these defendants -- tortured -- and the law does not allow for that."

It would have been much more discreet to simply make him disappear.

[Joe Hadenuf]

If anyone did this to mine, and I caught them in the act or had proof of the event, I would shoot the SOB on the spot...I wouldn't be able to help myself.. He would be dead in short order.

[fogarty]

Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Ken Frazee said that no crime, even horrific assaults on children, merits vigilante justice.

Well Kenny, if the justice system had not FAILED us, we would not have to resort to this. The justice system has failed, and our courts are unjust. Criminal walk free. More power to citizens who take the law into their own hands. I hope more citizens do likewise.

I guarantee that the scumbag that decides to molest my child will rue the day he was born on this earth. He will wish he had been allowed to die on death row.