Thursday, May 27, 2021

When police won't uphold the law, sooner or later the community will act

 

In the second article of my recent series titled "Defending yourself in a progressive, left-wing environment", I pointed out, concerning the situation in South Africa during the most difficult years of resistance against apartheid:


The first thing that had to be done was to ensure local law and order by keeping as many criminals as possible at a distance.  This wasn't easy.  In such a lawless environment, many local gangsters set themselves up as warlords, dominating their areas and exacting a toll on residents to fund their criminal lifestyles.  Any resistance was met with savage reprisals.  Sadly, that meant the resistance also became more and more savage.  The Golden Rule tells us to "do to others as you want them to do to you".  If gangsters behave brutally, they must expect brutality in return - and they got it, in spades.


Tragically, once such attitudes become embedded in a community (including an ongoing, abiding distrust of the police and the authorities), they may continue to take the law into their own hands.  That's just happened (again) in Zandspruit, South Africa, where the victims were beaten up, tortured, and then executed by the dreaded "necklace".  It's the latest in literally hundreds of vigilante "executions" in that nation over the past year.


Gory images of the remains of eight men lying with their hands tied behind their backs with rope while their bodies are charred beyond recognition have once more highlighted the horrors of vigilantism or mob justice in some townships and informal settlements.

The eight victims found in an open field in Honeydew informal settlement, known as Zandspruit, Joburg this week will drastically increase the 903 number of people already murdered as a result of vigilantism in the last year in South Africa, according to the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) figures supplied by the head of justice and violence Gareth Newham.

Witnesses have alleged that some members of the community rounded up suspects by beating one after another and forcing them to point out their fellow gang members. The men were then frogmarched to the open field where one resident described a heart-wrenching scene where they were beaten up with everything at the hands of the mob, including stones, sjamboks and hacked with axes and other dangerous objects while they were lying on the ground.

“It was horrible. They were bleeding and screaming for help while being dragged to the soccer field. The group was actually looking for 12 boys, three of whom managed to escape,” said a man who seemed unaffected by what he saw.

In the aftermath of the rage and mob justice, eight men succumbed to the injuries – four at the scene while another four died in hospital. The survivor is alleged to have been saved after pleading for his hands to be cut rather, is fighting for his life after he suffered burns on both arms.

. . .

One of the resident at the scene, Sphamandla Dludlu, said although he doesn’t condone what happened, these boys were very problematic. “This has been going on for a while now. There are lots of these boys, from different groups. These boys terrorised the community. My friend was killed by one of these groups called “Tripple O” in 2019,” he said.

He said one of the reasons that led to the community taking the law into their hands was the police’s lack of response to crimes.

“We report criminal activities to the police, but they sometimes tell us that there are no vehicles to attend to our complaints. Even those who killed my friend are out there enjoying their lives. We were told that an investigator who was dealing with the case has been transferred to Mpumalanga and that the dockets were missing. Now the community is fed up and opted to deal with these boys on their own,” he said.


There's more at the link.

I fear we'll see similar events in this country, if local police turn into partisan agents who allow certain groups to get away with their crimes while cracking down on others who are not in political favor.  The latter appears to be happening in left-wing, liberal, progressive jurisdictions across the country, and people are rapidly losing patience as a result.  It can't be long before we reach a flashpoint in one or more of those areas - and once that happens, things get out of control very quickly indeed.  I know.  I've seen it at first hand.

BLM and Antifa extremists might want to take note of that . . . before it's too late.

Peter


11 comments:

Steve said...

Hm....the tenor of this story is "those evil townspeople were so mean to those boys". And I found in the article that "those townspeople" have now been arrested.
How can the police find the time to arrest "those townspeople" but couldn't find the time to arrest "those boys"?
And you are correct; here in the hill country of Texas; you try and pull a stunt against humanity; you gonna get your comeuppance.

T Town said...

Besides the partisan action of police being on the rise, we are likely to also begin seeing apathy towards crime (at least that comitted by individuals of a certain race) as a result of the Chauvin conviction.

riverrider said...

in their zeal to prevent "modern day lynching" the woke crowd here is going to cause just that. is/are? doesn't sound right...

Arthur Sido said...

Extra-judicial killings are already commonplace in black neighborhoods, a significant percentage of gun violence is an endless cycle of retaliation. They don't cooperate with the cops, they take matters into their own hands. The same is true in many places in Central America. As America looks more and more like Central America combined with South Africa due to demographic displacement, that will likewise become commonplace here as well. The real question is, will we adopt the same attitude or just continue to be victims?

Jim M said...

We should be expecting this over the summer. A so called protest blocking traffic on a highway. Groups breaking car windows and swarming cars, someone will open up and get lots of head shots. Then the fuse is lit. More protests, more deaths, retaliation and exponential escalation. Active "Hunting" of potential offenders, of you read into that. The police will do nothing, the state police will do nothing, the FBI will do nothing. This is one possible outcome, not carved in stone but people should be wary of crossing the line during a protest. "They" better have a look at their total numbers if they want to go down this road.

Old NFO said...

Either way, it will not end well... sigh

pyotr said...

Years ago, I saw a cartoon which basically asked "When the Anarchists have finally neutralized the police, who do they believe is going to protect them from the rednecks?"

It is going to get real ugly before (if) it ever gets better.

Rick T said...

I expect the rules of engagement to be brutally pragmatic when the balloon goes up. Umbrella carriers, the people they conceal, 'medics' or 'media' who are really combatants, and laser wielders will all be bullet magnets.

Tschifty Mccoy said...

Peter, what's the situation in South Africa in terms of private gun ownership? From what I've read, some of the farmers outside cities seem to be armed but the gangs are armed as well and outnumber the farmers. Do you think the dynamic here in US changes due to high levels of fun ownership or is that overrated?

Jonathan H said...

This is already happening to an extent in the US; the media is purposely not reporting it.
There have been criminals let out with no bond who died or disappeared, or who got really short sentences for bad crimes who had "accidents".

I don't know the extent because of the lack of reporting, but it has started and government and the media are desperate to hide it.

One case I read about a little while ago was in Southern Illinois - a liberal judge imposed from northern Illinois let a notorious pedophile out on personal recognizance despite his record. A few days later the man's headless body showed up on the judge's doorstep. I looked for it recently and couldn't find any mention of it.

ErisGuy said...

I fear we'll see similar events in this country, if local police turn into partisan agents

If the Plano police side with BLM/Antifa again, … better to act now when the problem is small than after Legacy West is burned out.