Originally posted by: sparkyclarky
Originally posted by: 91TTZ
Originally posted by: sparkyclarky
Yes. Damage to your property, which can be compensated through proper legal channels, is no excuse for chasing down a child with the intention of harm (clearly that was the intention, as the boy's friend was beaten).
The boys were definitely wrong, but they did not deserve the vigilante justice that was dished out. This was a time for the 20somethings to contact the police.
Sparky: you are claiming the way things are *supposed* to work in a perfect world. There's one little problem with that- they really *don't* work like that.
Here is how it happens in reality- your property gets damaged and the people responsible flee. You don't chase after them and you call the police. The police arrive 10 minutes later and the people responsible are nowhere to be found. Now you're stuck with the bill. With no suspects captured, you have no choice but to pay it yourself.
The next commonly claimed thing is that insurance should cover it. Again, that's very idealistic. Not everyone has full coverage, and even if you do, you still have a hefty deductible which usually exceeds the cost of repairs. A typical deductible is $500. So you're $500 out of pocket because you didn't want to chase down the people that did it.
In addition, the only vigilante justice that was dealt out was the beating, and that kid deserved it. The kid who ran into traffic did that to himself. That was no vigilante justice, that was natural selection at work. To figure out the problem you need to find the root cause. The root cause was NOT the guys chasing the kids down, the root cause was stupidity on the kids part. They were dumb. That stupidity is what led to them shooting bottle rockets into cars, and that stupidity is also what made him decide to run into traffic.
I agree that the kids were the instigators, and that they were undeniably stupid little sh1ts. The problem is that the crime they committed does not automatically allow the person they committed that crime unto to go and retaliate in any means possible. The older guys could have simply detained the kids until police had arrived. The way it seems (and admittedly, we are all going on fairly sparse info), the 2nd kid saw his friend getting beat then took off like a bat outta hell (and who wouldn't when you see a much older, larger man handing out a beating). The 2nd kid is running for what could in reality be his life. That sort of flight response most likely wouldn't have occured, had they simply done the right thing and detained the kids for property damage. As far as insurance goes, you simply have no argument there. Detaining the kids allows for 2 things. First, you have a guaranteed perpetrator. With this you can sue the kids parents for compensation, pain and suffering, and the like (and you most likely would win such a suit when the kids were obviously doing something so incredibly dangerous and stupid). Combined with the insurance, you'd most likely do OK in the end. Second, you are not beating the kids, which could very easily land yourself in jail slapped with a hefty fine and a potential lawsuit for responding to a violation of the law by subsequently violating the law yourself. Beating the kids gains you nothing, but detaining them and calling the police has potential benefits.
Admittedly, you still have to chase them to detain them, but I can almost guarantee that the chase wouldn't have ended nearly as bad as it did, had not the first kid been beaten (with his friend as witness).
Vigilante justice, when allowed unchecked, is one factor that will undue the rule of law. It should only come into play when the law has failed itself and not allowed for any provisions for a change of the law allowing for the law to right itself again. In this case, the law had not yet failed and if it would, it can easily be changed. Therefore, vigilante justice was unwarranted.
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