Both Dojo Rat and Martial Development have reported on the vigilante superhero movement that’s hitting the streets of Seattle.
Vigilante justice has come to Seattle, and the caped crusaders drive a Kia. Seattle police say a group of self-described superheroes have been patrolling the streets at night trying to save people from crime. They call themselves the Rain City Superhero Movement and say they’re part of a nationwide movement of real-life crime fighters.
In related news, the Indianapolis Metropolis Police Department has been rocked with a series of unfortunate incidents
The charges against officers David Dinsmore and Matthew Elam bring to seven the number of IMPD officers arrested on felony or misdemeanor charges in the past year. Meanwhile, police continue to investigate accusations that an off-duty officer robbed and later threatened an exotic dancer.
Highlights from that seven include at least two reports of police brutality, substance abuse and the alleged robbery of a stripper! In fact things have gotten so bad that Reverend Al Sharpton recently visited Indianapolis.
“You would assume that police in Indianapolis aren’t trained on how to restrain people,” Sharpton said, “Four or five of them and they can’t restrain a 15-year-old?” He went on to call the incident an injustice.
Of the five officers involved in the beating incident, one has been fired and another reprimanded.
At the rate things are going I would not be surprised at all if some knucklehead decided to dress up like Batman and start to patrol the mean streets of Indianapolis.
Speaking of knuckleheads, we do have the Guardian Angels protecting our downtown.
The Guardian Angels, a crime fighting volunteer group with a controversial past, announced Saturday that it is starting an Indianapolis chapter.
The group went on patrol throughout city streets in Indianapolis around 7:00pm Saturday. They also hit the streets in Broad Ripple.
I’m not a big fan of “vigilante justice”. In fact I think it’s a bad idea — better to leave this to law enforcement professionals. True that IMPD has problems but with the right leadership, those problems can be fixed. I also agree with Dojo Rat: Many of the problems we are seeing are directly related to tough economic uncertainty.
As for dressing up like a superhero, well, eventually some thug will up the ante and bring firearms into the mix. I can only hope that for the sake of Seattle Superman that the superhero movement requires body armor.
Let’s close with the recent report about the Guardian Angels.
-BCP
Any info out there about how these guys train, or what their protocols are for when someone does up the ante with lethal force? At what point do they call the police?
-Or are they more of a presence that just walks around to discourage crime from happening in the first place?
Branden,
I think they do have some sort of self-defense training. Problem is that the Angels have been in trouble for using too much force or for provoking.
Branden, you can ask the Seattle superhero about his training and tactics–he has a Facebook.
I understand he is quite active, stealing into notorious crack dens, making citizens’ arrests, etc. This is apparently annoying the other, older members of the Seattle superhero community (who knew?) that prefer a less confrontational approach.
We can talk about the dangers of “vigilante justice”, but in Seattle our “proper authorities” have been videotaped beating suspects, even restrained suspects, and one apparently executed a man for the crime of public drunkenness.
Maybe we all need to fight for justice, if we want it, because nobody is going to just give it to us.