Notes from Evil Bender

Wow. So,  Philly police were looking for a “person of interest” in the rape of an 11 year old girl, and some locals decided to take things into their own hands:

Philadelphia’s police commissioner said Thursday he will not pursue criminal charges against a group of angry neighbors who beat a man sought for questioning in the rape of an 11-year-old girl. [...]

Philadelphia’s police commissioner said Thursday he will not pursue criminal charges against a group of angry neighbors who beat a man sought for questioning in the rape of an 11-year-old girl. [...]

Surveillance video shows a man being chased by at least three people, one of whom hits him several times with what appears to be a bat or large stick. As they chase the man, a crowd gathers. The video cuts off after a police officer arrives.

It should be obvious that vigilante violence isn’t okay. Going outside the rule of law is never an optimal solution, and beating “persons of interest” as a means of detention is a dangerous precedent, to say the least. If this guy is the rapist, I hope he spends a long, long time in prison after being convicted by a jury of his peers. But we can’t have people taking the law into their own hands. I would think in the aftermath of Dr. Tiller’s murder (by a man convinced he was stopping a moral atrocity), we’d be particularly sensitive to the danger of vigilante violence-in-the-name-of-justice.

To be clear, I don’t know if these people should be charged for their detention of the suspect. I do know that three people chasing down and beating him is a chilling thought, and quite possibly a crime. Certainly we should be very, very cautious of this sort of comic-book-hero style “citizens arrest.”

That’s why I must admit to being very troubled by Samhita’s remarks:

Marc Lamont Hill makes the point that because of the erasure of the experiences of women of color and specifically black women with sexual violence in the justice system and the news media, there is an understanding within the community that no one is going to do anything about this injustice. So while we may fall on the side of never resorting to violence, many people do not have this privilege.

But of course, the authorities were actively pursuing this man, so it’s hardly safe to assume this crime was going to be erased. And while my sympathies are clear with people of color, women, poor people and other marginalized groups who are treated so unfairly within our system of law. But I don’t think it’s a matter of privilege to condemn vigilante violence. If these people used any more force than necessary detaining the suspect, they were wrong, quite clearly. You can’t be for the rule of law only some of the time.

Furthermore, marginalized communities are not, and will never be, served well by vigilante systems which, as should be obvious, are often used by those in power to terrorize marginalized groups.Vigilantism, it seems to me, far more frequently takes the form of lynchings than proper detaining of suspects.

And, as several commenters point out, if these people feel marginalized by the justice system, and there’s every reason to think they have a right to feel that way, then they certainly shouldn’t be engaging in beatings on the word of the police that this particular “person of interest” is likely guilty.

Marginalized communities are not well served by going outside the rule of law, as such lawlessness will be used against them. The only thing worse than our flawed justice system for marginalized groups is no justice system. Being for the rule of law and opposed to vigilante violence is the responsible position here. We need to work to improve our justice system, not weaken it with justifications of lawlessness.