Vigilante Behavior
"Vigilante justice" is rationalized by the idea that adequate legal mechanisms for criminal punishment are either nonexistent or insufficient. Vigilantes typically see government as ineffective in enforcing the law; and such individuals often presume to justify their actions as fulfillment of the wishes of "the community".
Persons alleged to be "escaping the law" or "above the law" are sometimes the victims of vigilantism.
Vigilante behavior involves various degrees of violence. Vigilantes may assault targets verbally or physically or may vandalize property or actually kill individuals.
In a number of cases, vigilantism has involved mistaken identity.
- In Britain in the early 2000s, there were reports of vandalism, assaults and verbal abuse towards people wrongly accused of being pedophiles, following the murder of Sarah Payne.
- In Guyana in 2008, Hardel Haynes was beaten to death by a mob who mistook him for a thief.
- In 2009, Philadelphia's Michael Zenquis was severely assaulted by a group of locals who mistook him for a rapist on the loose.
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“The abdication of Belief
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Better an ignis fatuus
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—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)