History Main / VigilanteExecution

* On 9 November 1933, Thomas H. Thurmond and John M. Holmes abducted 22-year-old [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Hart Brooke Hart]] in San Jose and killed him by throwing him off a bridge. Both were soon arrested, and a rumour was spread that they would plead insanity, causing widespread anger. Throughout the day, the media reported that a lynching was going to take place. At midnight, the gathered mob did indeed drag the two out of their cells and hanged them in St. James Park on live radio.

** In 2012, Barry "Prell" Gilton and Lupe Mercado found that their daughter Alicia had been forced into prostitution by her boyfriend Calvin Sneed. After [[PoliceAreUseless the police failed to help them]], the couple took revenge by [[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2012-jun-15-la-me-pimp-slaying-20120615-story.html Sneed down and shooting him to death in his car]].

%%** In 2012, Barry "Prell" Gilton and Lupe Mercado found that their daughter Alicia had been forced into prostitution by her boyfriend Calvin Sneed. After [[PoliceAreUseless the police failed to help them]], the couple took revenge by [[https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/notorious-san-francisco-gang-members-sent-to-prison-for-murdering-alleged-pimp/ Sneed down and shooting him to death in his car]].

** In 1984, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Plauche Gary Plauche]] murdered 25-year-old karate instructor Jeff Doucet as he was being escorted through Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport by police officers. Doucet had been arrested in California for kidnapping and sexually assaulting Plauche's son Jody, and was being extradited back to Louisiana to by police to stand trial for his crimes. As Doucet was walking through the airport, Plauche shot him in the head and then surrendered to the police at the scene. The entire incident was recorded by television crews who were on hand to film the extradition, and was made famous by the line "Why Gary, Why?!", shouted by one of the officers who recognized Plauche. His 7-year prison sentence was suspended by the judge and Plauche only served 5 years probation and 300 hours of community service for the killing.

* On 9 November 1933, Thomas H. Thurmond and John M. Holmes abducted 22-year-old Brooke Hart in San Jose and killed him by throwing him off a bridge. Both were soon arrested, and a rumour was spread that they would plead insanity, causing widespread anger. Throughout the day, the media reported that a lynching was going to take place. At midnight, the gathered mob did indeed drag the two out of their cells and hanged them in St. James Park on live radio.

* On February 16, 1947, a black man named Willie Earle was arrested for the murder of white cab driver Thomas Brown in Greenville, South Carolina. That night, a mob of several dozen armed cab drivers stormed into the county jail, forced jail guards to hand over Earle, and then beat, shot, and stabbed him to death. The crime was so shocking that South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond, a notorious pro-segregationist, [[EveryoneHasStandards publicly condemned it and actively worked with the FBI to apprehend the killers]]. A total of 31 people were arrested and went to trial, but all of them were acquitted. The presiding judge in the trial, Robert Martin, was so outraged by the verdict that he angrily stormed out of the courthouse without thanking the jury for their service. The event inspired South Carolina to pass a new anti-lynching law in 1950 that made lynching a capital crime. Earle's case is believed to be the last lynching in the state of South Carolina.

%%** In 2012, Barry "Prell" Gilton and Lupe Mercado found that their daughter Alicia had been forced into prostitution by her boyfriend Calvin Sneed. After [[PoliceAreUseless the police failed to help them]], the couple took revenge by [[https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/notorious-san-francisco-gang-members-sent-to-prison-for-murdering-alleged-pimp/ Sneed down and shooting him to death in his car]].

* Ossetian father Vitaly Kaloyev lost his wife (Svetlana) and children (Konstantin and Diana) in the in-air collision of Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 and DHL Flight 611 over Überlingen, Germany on July 1, 2002. Vitaly held Peter Nielsen, the sole air traffic controller in Switzerland who was handling traffic the night of the collision, responsible (in reality, Peter was a victim of circumstances caused by maintenance shutting down phone lines and other resources, his coworkers leaving him to handle it alone despite the fact that this was illegal, important backup systems that would alert him of the problem being down for maintenance, and an Airbus taking up his time). In 2004, Kaloyev hired a Moscow private investigator to find Nielsen's address, traveled to the Swiss town of Kloten where Nielsen had peacefully retired, and stabbed him to death. He was imprisoned for two years, but was later called a hero in his hometown for the act while the Swiss government declared him PersonaNonGrata. This was the basis for the Schwarzenegger movie [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_(2017_film) Aftermath]].

* On February 16, 1947, a black man named Willie Earle was arrested for the murder of white cab driver Thomas Brown in Greenville, South Carolina. That night, a mob of several dozen armed cab drivers stormed into the county jail, forced jail guards to hand over Earle, and then beat, shot, and stabbed him to death. The crime was so shocking that South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond, a notorious pro-segregationist, publicly condemned it and actively worked with the FBI to apprehend the killers. A total of 31 people were arrested and went to trial, but all of them were acquitted. The presiding judge in the trial, Robert Martin, was so outraged by the verdict that he angrily stormed out of the courthouse without thanking the jury for their service. The event inspired South Carolina to pass a new anti-lynching law in 1950 that made lynching a capital crime. Earle's case is believed to be the last lynching in the state of South Carolina.

** Ellie Nesler shot and killed her son's accused molester in the courtroom in 1993.

** In 2012, Prell Gilton and Lupe Mercado found that their daughter Alicia had been forced into prostitution by her boyfriend Calvin Sneed. After [[PoliceAreUseless the police failed to help them]], the couple took revenge by tracking Sneed down and shooting him to death in his car.
** In June of 2012, an unidentified father beat farmhand Jesus Mora Flores to death after finding out he molested his daughter.
** When convicted Argentine child molester Marcelo Fabian Pecollo was able to continue working as a trumpet teacher as if nothing had happened after his release from prison in mid-2010's, the parents of his victims attacked him and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard beat him to death with his own trumpet]].
** Indian serial killer, rapist and gangster Akku Yadav was stoned, castrated and stabbed over 70 times by a lynch mob of mostly women while seeking police protection in a courthouse.
** In June 2013, a Bolivian teenager named Santos Ramos raped and killed Leandra Arias Janco. The local community responded to the crime by getting together and [[KarmicDeath burying him alive in his victim's grave]].
* One of the more infamous examples occurred in 1981, when the residents of Skidmore, Missouri, ganged up and murdered Ken [=McElroy=], a local resident who had committed various crimes ranging from arson to attempted murder to statutory rape, but had evaded any legal punishment through intimidation. To this day, exactly who killed [=McElroy=] is unknown.

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* [[spoiler:The first case of]] ''VideoGame/AviaryAttorney'' features a cruel subversion of GoodLawyersGoodClients and a [[KarmaHoudini murderer walks]]. In one of the ending paths, [[spoiler:Jayjay Falcon, the protagonist,]] loses all faith in justice and society and murders that person, going on to kill dozens of innocents while pursuing someone else.
* One of the main overarching mysteries in ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney Duology'' is about the identity of a vigilante known as the Reaper of the Bailey performing such acts to guilty parties, usually corrupt members of high society, who walk free. At first, pretty much everyone is convinced that the culprit is prosecutor Barok van Zieks, as the defendants who are killed are almost always from trials he prosecuted, but he's never been formally charged since no evidence has ever been found to support this. However, as the story goes on [[spoiler: it becomes increasingly clear this might not be the case and comes to a head in the second game's final trial when it's revealed that the Reaper is not a single person but an organization led by London's Chief Justice that's been using van Zieks as a scapegoat for 10 years.]]
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* One of the main overarching mysteries in ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney Duology'' is about the identity of a vigilante known as the Reaper of the Bailey preforming such acts to guilty parties, usually corrupt members of high society, who walk free. At first pretty much everyone is convinced the culprit is Barok Van Zieks, the main prosecutor of this game, as the defendants who are killed are almost always from trials he prosecuted, but since no evidence has ever been found to support this he's never been formally charged. However, as the games go on [[spoiler: it becomes increasingly clear this might not be the case and comes to a head in the second game's final trial when it's revealed that the Reaper is not a single person but an organization led by London's Chief Justice that's been using Van Zieks as a scapegoat for 10 or so years.]]

* The ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' episode "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS5E4TheBrotherhood The Brotherhood]]" had three {{Dirty Cop}}s who did this to criminals they feel didn't get the punishment they deserved. Their downfall begins when they kill a kid who was actually innocent; DNA evidence exonerated him, but the cops never checked. Needless to say, [[TemptingFate Walker warned them this sort of thing would happen]]!

* The ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' episode "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS5E4TheBrotherhood The Brotherhood]]" had three {{Dirty Cop}}s who did this to criminals they feel didn't get the punishment they deserved. Their downfall begins when they kill a kid who was actually innocent; DNA evidence exonerated him, but the cops never checked. Needless to say, Walker warned them this sort of thing would happen!

* The ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' episode "The Brotherhood" had three {{Dirty Cop}}s who did this to criminals they feel didn't get the punishment they deserved. Their downfall begins when they kill a kid who was actually innocent; DNA evidence exonerated him, but the cops never checked. Needless to say, Walker warned them this sort of thing would happen!

* An episode of ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' had three {{Dirty Cop}}s who did this to criminals they feel didn't get the punishment they deserved. Their downfall begins when they kill a kid who was actually innocent; DNA evidence exonerated him, but the cops never checked. Needless to say, Walker warned them this sort of thing would happen!

* An episode of ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' had three cops who did this to criminals they feel didn't get the punishment they deserved. Their downfall begins when they kill a kid who was actually innocent; DNA evidence exonerated him, but the cops never checked.

* [[VigilanteMilitia Vigilante]] groups seeking to hunt and entrap suspected paedophiles in Britain, usually via online stings in which the suspect believes he is talking to a child, have followed through with mob attacks on the suspects which are filmed and released online as "proof" of guilt. In at least one case they have targeted innocent people; and in several others the suspect who is publicly outed by them has committed suicide. Concern is growing at the techniques used by the vigilantes, who outright deny they have pushed socially inept and often mentally fragile people into suicide[[note]]Even if there is a very high chance the targeted person is guilty of child abuse, it has been pointed out that Britain does not have the death sentence for any crime, and even if the vigilantes provide proof that would aid a police investigation, they should hand this over to the proper authorities so that justice can take its course[[/note]]. Spokesmen for the vigilante groups veer between indignantly denying they are breaking the law themselves and applying mob justice, and if pushed, will admit they don't care as "he had it coming to him" and "Good, that's one less". Links between these vigilante groups and far-right groupings have also caused concern.

* Vigilante groups seeking to hunt and entrap suspected paedophiles in Britain, usually via online stings in which the suspect believes he is talking to a child, have followed through with mob attacks on the suspects which are filmed and released online as "proof" of guilt. In at least one case they have targeted innocent people; and in several others the suspect who is publicly outed by them has committed suicide. Concern is growing at the techniques used by the vigilantes, who outright deny they have pushed socially inept and often mentally fragile people into suicide[[note]]Even if there is a very high chance the targeted person is guilty of child abuse, it has been pointed out that Britain does not have the death sentence for any crime, and even if the vigilantes provide proof that would aid a police investigation, they should hand this over to the proper authorities so that justice can take its course[[/note]]. Spokesmen for the vigilante groups veer between indignantly denying they are breaking the law themselves and applying mob justice, and if pushed, will admit they don't care as "he had it coming to him" and "Good, that's one less". Links between these vigilante groups and far-right groupings have also caused concern.

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* ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Release": Doggett is in a bar, talking to the man he knows killed his son, but hasn't got enough evidence to arrest him. As the suspect leaves the bar, he is shot by Follmer, who had been taking bribes from him in his early days.

* Series/TheLincolnLawyer, being an adaptation of Literature/TheBrassVerdict (see Literature, above) carries over the resolution from that novel, although it changes the identity (and fate) of the executioner - [[spoiler: in the novel, the executioners have left the country before their crime is even discovered, and no-one seems particularly keen to extradite them back; in the series, the executioner carries out their attack in broad daylight, in the presence of many reporters and cameras, and doesn't even try to get away, meaning they're pretty much certainly going to be convicted of their crime.]]

* Subverted quite effectively in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' — when a highly notorious Cardassian war criminal just goes free, he is killed by a Bajoran vigilante. [[spoiler:Except the victim was innocent (he was a file clerk who was actually extremely sympathetic to the Bajorans, to the point of disguising himself as the war criminal and trying to get himself executed as him to force his people to face their crimes), and the attacker was a violent drunk who felt that just being a Cardassian was enough of a reason to kill him.]]

** In season 4's "Admissions," Inspector Gerrard bursts into an interrogation room and fatally shoots his daughter's rapist.

** It is heavily implied that Flack shot Angell's killer in cold blood in the season 5 finale. This is later verified during Mac's "limbo" period in the season 8 finale.
** It's also the M.O. in season 7's "Vigilante."

** In the episode "Reckoner", the killer is a hitman hired by a judge who went nuts [[spoiler:after the death of his wife]] and became obsessed with killing people he deemed to have escaped justice.

** "True Nights" plays with this. The [=UnSub=] is [[spoiler:taking revenge for the rape and murder of his pregnant girlfriend]], but doesn't [[TheKillerInMe realize he's doing it]] until Rossi points out the scar on his torso. [[spoiler:The gang forced him to watch and nearly eviscerated him, and the trauma caused him to have a psychotic break.]]
** Also used in "To Hell ... and Back.", the fourth season finale pair, where Hotch doubts his own ability as a prosecutor to convict the (quadriplegic) unsub, which leads to William Hightower shooting the [=UnSub=] with a shotgun.

** A serial killer who'd [[DeathOfPersonality got his personality erased]], and a new one installed in its place. The relatives of his victims refuse to see it as a fit punishment, even though the man who'd killed their loved ones is essentially ''dead'', and track him down and murder him after their psychological abuse of the man brings back memories of his criminal past.
** It also happens in the episode ''[[Recap/BabylonFiveS01E09Deathwalker Deathwalker]]'', where a female evil alien scientist war criminal who did experiments on prisoners walks out of her trial because she has found an immortality serum (extracted from dying sentient beings), and the judges decide that getting it is more important than punishing her. Then a space ship flown by the mysterious and cryptic Vorlons appears out of the jump gate and blows her ship up because the younger races "are not ready for immortality".

** In November of 2021, 60-year old John Eisenman was charged with murdering his daughter's 19-year old boyfriend Aaron Sorensen after discovering he had sold her into sex trafficking ring in Seattle, Washington. After rescuing and recovering his daughter, Eisenman reportedly tracked down Sorensen, abducted him, tied him up, beat him with a cinder block, stabbed him to death, and then left him in the trunk of a car, where his remains would not be discovered for nearly a year.

-->-- '''Literature/Mike Hammer''', ''I, the Jury''

-->-- '''Mike Hammer''', ''[[Literature/MikeHammer I, the Jury]]''

** In 1984, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Plauche Gary Plauche]] murdered 25-year-old karate instructor Jeff Doucet as he was being escorted through Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport by police officers. Doucet had been arrested in California for kidnapping and sexually assaulting Plauche's son Jody, and was being extradited back to Louisiana to by police to stand trial for his crimes. As Doucet was walking through the airport, Plauche shot him in the head and then surrendered to the police at the scene. The entire incident was recorded by television crews who were on hand to film the extradition, and was made famous by the line "Why Gary, Why?!", shouted by one of the officers who recognized Plauche.

* Ossetian father Vitaly Kaloyev lost his wife (Svetlana) and children (Konstantin and Diana) in the in-air collision of Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 and DHL Flight 611 over Überlingen, Germany on July 1, 2002. Vitaly held Peter Nielsen, the sole air traffic controller in Switzerland who was handling traffic the night of the collision, responsible (in reality, Peter was a victim of circumstances caused by maintenance shutting down phone lines and other resources, his coworkers leaving him to handle it alone despite the fact that this was illegal, important backup systems that would alert him of the problem being down for maintenance, and an Airbus taking up his time). In 2004, Kaloyev hired a Moscow private investigator to find Nielsen's address, traveled to the Swiss town of Kloten where Nielsen had peacefully retired, and stabbed him to death. He was imprisoned for two years, but was later called a hero in his hometown for the act while the Swiss government declared him PersonaNonGrata.