Vigilantism and the vigilante ethos existed long before the word
vigilante was introduced into the English language. There are conceptual parallels between the medieval
aristocratic custom of
private war or
vendetta and the modern vigilante philosophy. Elements of the concept of vigilantism can be found in the biblical account in
Genesis 34 of the abduction and rape (or, by some interpretations, seduction) of
Dinah, the daughter of
Jacob, in the
Canaanite city of
Shechem by the eponymous son of the ruler, and the violent reaction of her brothers
Simeon and
Levi, who slew all of the males of the city in revenge, rescued their sister and plundered Shechem. When Jacob protested that their actions might bring trouble upon him and his family, the brothers replied "Should he [i.e., Shechem] treat our sister as a harlot?" In the
Western literary and cultural tradition, characteristics of vigilantism have often been vested in folkloric heroes and
outlaws (e.g.,
Robin Hood). During medieval times, punishment of felons was sometimes exercised by such
secret societies as the courts of the
Vehm (
cf. the medieval Sardinian
Gamurra later become
Barracelli, the Sicilian
Vendicatori and the
Beati Paoli), a type of early vigilante organization, which became extremely powerful in Westphalian Germany during the 15th century.
Vigilantism in Mexico In some regions of Mexico, mainly in the state of
Michoacan, people affected by criminal groups like
Los Zetas and
La Familia Michoacana, created vigilante groups called
Grupos de autodefensa comunitaria in 2013. Their most notorious leader
Hipólito Mora, was assassinated in 2023.
Other notable acts of vigilantism • In the early 20th century, the
White Finns founded the
Suojeluskunta (Protection Corps) as a paramilitary vigilante organization in
Finland. It formed the nucleus of the White Army in the
Finnish Civil War. • A number of vigilante organizations were founded in the US around the time of World War I including the
American Protective League,
National Security League,
Knights of Liberty, and
Boy Spies of America, with the goal of targeting those suspected to be pro-German or insufficiently loyal. Violent events by such groups included the
Tulsa Outrage, the
lynching of Olli Kinkkonen, and a number of other
tarring and feathering events such as those in Wisconsin. • On the 5th of May, 1981
Marianne Bachmeier pulled out a handgun from the right side of her trench coat and shot her seven year old daughter's sexual abuser and murderer dead during his trial in the courtroom of Lübeck District Court. • On March 16, 1984,
Gary Plauché shot and killed Jeff Doucet, who was set to be arraigned on charges of aggravated kidnapping of Plauché's son. The case received wide publicity because some people questioned whether Plauché - acting on his belief Doucet had been sexually abusing his son - should have been charged with murder. • In the Philippines in the mid-eighties, the
Alsa Masa and the
Kuratong Baleleng were formed to fight Communist insurgents. • During the 1990s, the group
City without Drugs publicly beat and murdered drug dealers and forced addicts to quit doing drugs in the city of
Yekaterinburg,
Russia. • On the 28th of November, 1994,
Jeffrey Dahmer, an infamous Milwaukee
serial killer and
cannibal was beaten to death by
Christopher Scarver, a fellow inmate at the
Columbia Correctional Institution in
Portage, Wisconsin. • Formed in 1996, the
People Against Gangsterism and Drugs of
Cape Town, South Africa fights drugs and gangs in their region. They have been linked to terrorism since they bombed some American targets in Cape Town. • Formed in 1998, the
Bakassi Boys of
Nigeria were viewed as instrumental in decreasing the region's high crime. •
Los Pepes was a group formed in
Colombia during the 1990s that committed acts of vigilantism against drug lord
Pablo Escobar and his associates within the
Medellín Cartel. • After the
September 11 attacks in 2001,
Jonathan Idema, a self-proclaimed vigilante, entered
Afghanistan and captured many people he claimed to be
terrorists. Idema claimed he was collaborating with, and supported by, the
United States Government. He sold news-media outlets tapes that he claimed showed an
al-Qaeda training camp in action. His operations ended abruptly when he was arrested with his partners in 2004 and sentenced to 10 years in a notorious Afghan prison, before being pardoned in 2007. • On November 24, 1963,
Jack Ruby killed
Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was arrested on November 22, roughly 75 minutes after he was suspected to have shot
John F. Kennedy. • On August 13, 2004,
Akku Yadav was lynched by a mob of around 200 women from Kasturba Nagar, India. It took them 15 minutes to hack to death the man they say raped them with impunity for more than a decade. Chilli powder was thrown in his face and stones hurled. As he flailed and fought, one of his alleged victims hacked off his penis with a vegetable knife. A further 70 stab wounds were left on his body. •
Salwa Judum, the anti-
Naxalite group formed in 2005 in India are suspected to be helping the security forces in their fight against Naxals. • In Hampshire, England, during 2006, a vigilante slashed the tires of more than twenty cars, leaving a note made from cut-out newsprint stating "Warning: you have been seen while using your mobile phone". Driving whilst using a mobile is a
criminal offense in the UK, but critics feel the law is little observed or enforced. • The
Gulabi Gang, formed in 2006 in
Uttar Pradesh, is a female vigilante group dedicated to protecting women of all castes from domestic abuse, sexual violence, and oppression. •
Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), an
Irish republican socialist paramilitary group, maintains a presence in parts of Northern Ireland and has carried out punishment beatings on local alleged petty criminals. In 2006, the INLA claimed to have put at least two drugs gangs out of business in Northern Ireland. After their raid on a criminal organization based in the north-west, they released a statement saying that "the Irish National Liberation Army will not allow the working-class people of this city to be used as cannon fodder by these criminals whose only concern is profit by whatever means available to them." On 15 February 2009, the INLA claimed responsibility for the shooting death of Derry drug-dealer Jim McConnell. On 19 August 2009, the INLA shot and wounded a man in Derry. The INLA claimed that the man was involved in drug dealing although the injured man and his family denied the allegation. In a newspaper article on 28 August, however, the victim retracted his previous statement and admitted that he had been involved in small scale drug-dealing but has since ceased these activities. •
Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) are an
Irish Republican vigilante organization active predominantly in and around
Derry. Although often attributed as being a front for "
Dissident Republican" groups by the media, the organization claim to have no allegiance to any particular Republican party or paramilitary. Formed in late 2008, RAAD originally offered an "amnesty" to all drug dealers, asking them to make themselves known to the group before giving an assurance that they had stopped dealing. In an interview with the
Derry Journal in August 2009, the group's leadership explained: "We would monitor the actions of those who have come forward and, given an adequate period of time, interest in those drug dealers would cease and they could start to lead normal lives". In 2010
The Real Irish Republican Army shot a man in the legs in Derry. The man was a convicted sex offender.
The Continuity Irish Republican Army in 2011 were blamed for the punishment beating of a heroin dealer in Clondalkin, Dublin. The man had previously been ordered to leave the country. • On April 15, 2011, a group of women in
Cherán armed with rocks and fireworks attacked a bus carrying
illegal loggers armed with machine guns in
Michoacán associated with the
Mexican drug cartel La Familia Michoacana. They assumed control over the town, expelled the police force and blocked roads leading to oak timber on a nearby mountain. Vigilante activity spread to the nearby community of
Opopeo. They established
Community self-defence groups. The government of Mexico has recognized Cherán as a self-governing indigenous community, but criminals continue to murder residents in the forest. • On June 13, 2014, Darius, a 16-year-old Romani residing in France and who has been several times interrogated by the police on the account of suspected burglaries and larcenies, was kidnapped, beaten up, and then left in a supermarket trolley by an unknown party after rumors circulated of him being implicated in a housebreaking, which happened several hours before in the city of Pierrefite-sur-Seine. • Since the
May 9, 2016 Philippine elections and the start of
Rodrigo Duterte's term as the President of the Philippines, numerous suspects (particularly drug users and pushers) were killed by various unknown hitmen labelled as a
summary execution during his
war on drugs. Duterte has been accused of being linked to the
Davao Death Squad, a vigilante group active since the mid-1990s in
Davao City, where Duterte had previously served as mayor. • Following the airing of
To Catch a Predator, an internet trend arose in which one or multiple people trick
pedophiles into meeting, under the impression that they were speaking with an underage person. The vigilantes then often hand the predators over to the police, or assault and/or blackmail the predators. ==See also==