History Main / VigilanteMilitia

** The Revachol Citizens' Militia is the de facto police force for the city of Revachol. On paper, it was founded by the Coalition of Nations' occupation forces as an official local police force answerable to them, but the reality is that the RCM operates in a "legal twilight", with many arguing that it's simply a highly-organized vigilante militia that the Coalition ''allows'' to operate as the city's police. [[spoiler:It's also strongly implied that the RCM is TheRemnant of the Insulindian Citizens' Militia, the military force of the city's now-deposed communist regime, having come to some kind of backroom arrangement with the occupiers after the horrifically bloody invasion and occupation.]]

* ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium:'' The Revachol Citizens' Militia is the local police force and is effectively a large, well-organised Vigilante Militia. It is accepted by most of the people, and tolerated by the occupying forces, but is semi-official at best.

* In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', Batman's activities have unfortunately inspired several gun-totting copycat vigilantes to take on the criminal underworld of Gotham. At least some of these are working together, as seen when two or three of them try to take down Scarecrow's operation. Bruce is not happy about this, as these average citizens don't have the same resources he does, and are more likely to get themselves killed. [[spoiler:Indeed, the Joker starts targeting them in his hunt for the Batman and brutally murders one on camera.]]

If a group of ordinary citizens are organized into a crime-fighting group by an official and deputized law enforcement officer, then they are a {{Posse}}, instead of one of these as they operate inside the law and will have been deputized accordingly (there may be borderline cases if a group of {{Dirty Cop}}s form one, but these are the exception rather than the rule). ''Generally'' not a RightWingMilitiaFanatic, although overlap is possible; in recent history (especially during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar) militias have often been hired by right-wing governments to augment the latter's use of violence against all opposition, Communist or otherwise. On rare occasions, the opponent they form to fight may be a monster instead of human criminals.

See also VigilanteMan, the individual version of this trope. Compare LaResistance (which forms against foreign invasions, not general lawlessness), TorchesAndPitchforks (likely to be gathered for a single, sometimes unjustified, act of violence against a hated figure and perhaps even being willing to kill their way past lawful authorities), and TheMagnificentSevenSamurai (a group of heroes defends a small community from either bandits or a tyrannical overlord).

If a group of ordinary citizens are organized into a crime-fighting group by an official and deputized law enforcement officer, then they are a {{Posse}}, instead of one of these as they operate inside the law and will have been deputized accordingly (there may be borderline cases if a group of {{Dirty Cop}}s form one, but these are the exception rather than the rule). If it's just a mob whipped up into a frenzy against someone, whether they're guilty or not, and usually disbands right afterwards, that's TorchesAndPitchforks (although if they have enough organization and time to think things out, they might qualify for both). ''Generally'' not a RightWingMilitiaFanatic, although overlap is possible; in recent history (especially during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar) militias have often been hired by right-wing governments to augment the latter's use of violence against all opposition, Communist or otherwise. On rare occasions, the opponent they form to fight may be a monster instead of human criminals.

* The Montana Vigilantes tracked ruffians, robbers, and desperados in the 1860s and 1870s Montana. Their symbol was "3-7-77", which they painted on the tents and houses of known troublemakers and which is still used today by the Montana Highway Patrol, who elected to put this symbol on their uniform patch in 1956.

* The Brazilian ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_police_militias Milícias]]'', formed by current or former policemen, firefighters, and military men who were tired of drug gangs, and fighting back to recover their neighbourhoods. However, to maintain their activities, they started extorsion schemes of the locals and providing illegal services like gas, cable television, slot machines, smuggled cigarettes, loan sharks, etc, and in some cases even allowing drug traffickers back, going full MotiveDecay. There's also a very strong link between the militias and conservative right-wing politicians, with multiple local and national figures with proven or alleged connections with them (so it also crosses over with RightWingMilitiaFanatic).

* ''Film/EyeForAnEye'': The film features a group operating out of a support group. They have very specific requirements: They only target killers whose guilt is obvious yet get OffOnATechnicality, and they won't make the kill for someone else. Instead, they teach newcomers how to make the hit themselves.

* Series/ThePurge: While most people take advantage of the Purge to loot and murder, the first season has a group of four women called the Matron Saints who save women from rapists and abusers on Purge night, and then brand said abusers' foreheads.

* This goes a long way to explaining why Irish terrorist groups enjoyed the support they did from local communities during UsefulNotes/TheTroubles. With the RUC, the official police force, seen as corrupt or compromised, local people looked to the IRA to deal with anti-social crimes such as burglary or minor theft. This was done promptly, efficiently and uncompromisingly, and incidence of burglary dropped a long way towards zero in republican areas.[[note]]Instances of people turning up at the local hospitals with serious injuries they were not prepared to discuss shot right up, however[[/note]] On the other side of the divide, the Protestant terrorist groups displayed a no-tolerance approach to, for instance, drug-dealing.[[note]]At least, with freelance drug-dealers who weren't working for them.[[/note]]

* The 1981 killing of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_McElroy Ken [=McElroy=]]] in broad daylight in the town of Skidmore, Missouri was a well-publicized example of a whole community going full-on VigilanteMan. [=McElroy=] was the local town bully with a 20-year track record of arrests for theft, cattle rustling, seducing and raping underage girls, and intimidating witnesses into silence, but had always managed to avoid jail thanks to his lawyer and the local Sheriff's department being too small and unwilling to confront him. Finally, when [=McElroy=] attempted to murder the local grocer who caught his children shoplifting, the townspeople got fed up and shot him in his pickup truck in the middle of town. All 46 eyewitnesses, except for [=McElroy's=] underage wife who was in the truck with him, [[BlatantLies claimed not to have seen who fired the shots]] when questioned by police and federal agents. In the 40 years since the shooting, no one has ever been charged for the killing.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'': In "[[Recap/FillmoreTwoWheelsFullThrottleNoBreaks Two Wheels, Full Throttle, No Breaks]]", after the safety patrol fails to stop a ring of scooter thieves, Derrick Minna starts a patrol of skaters and wheelchair hockey players to pursue the thieves. They are decently competent, but mostly just chase the undercover heroes. [[spoiler:It also turns out they are {{Unwitting Pawn}}s, as Derrick is the mastermind behind the thefts and is using them to catch his accomplices so he doesn’t have to pay them and can look like a hero for his campaign to be elected class President]].

* Ironically, UsefulNotes/TheMafia itself started out as organized vigilantes after the annexation of Sicily when the new authorities couldn't handle the chaos of introducing capitalism to a post-feudal society. It's one of the possible origins of the {{Yakuza}} too.

* The Montana Vigilantes tracked ruffians, robbers, and desperados in the 1860s and 1870s Montana. Their symbol was "3-7-77", which they painted on the tents and houses of known troublemakers and which is still used today by the Montana Highway Patrol, which elected to put this symbol on their uniform patch in 1956.

** In the second game the militia of Dantooine is an ad hoc force gathered to fight against local mercenaries and predators to keep the settlers safe.

** Taken UpToEleven in ''Film/HalloweenKills''. Following Michael's killing spree in the [[Film/Halloween2018 previous film]], and the police's inability to stop him, ''the entire town'' band together to hunt him down. This situation ends up {{deconstructed|Trope}} however, as the [[TorchesAndPitchforks mob mentality]] of this soon leads to an angry riot that claims the life of an innocent man mistaken for Michael [[spoiler: and the militia ultimately fails, as [[OneManArmy Michael slaughters them all]]]].

* In the TheWildWest, townspeople would sometimes form their own militia groups to protect against bandits or Indian raids if the local authorities were insufficient for such a task. One of the most notable examples was in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1892, where the infamous Dalton gang attempted to rob two banks on the same day, only to find themselves at war with nearly the entire adult population of the town. The ensuing gunfight proved costly, as the town Marshal and three others were killed, but the final result was the complete obliteration of the Dalton gang. Of the five robbers, 21-year old Emmitt Dalton was the only one to survive, with over a dozen gunshot wounds and a 14-year prison sentence.

* In the ''TheWildWest'', townspeople would sometimes form their own militia groups to protect against bandits or Indian raids if the local authorities were insufficient for such a task. One of the most notable examples was in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1892, where the infamous Dalton gang attempted to rob two banks on the same day, only to find themselves at war with nearly the entire adult population of the town. The ensuing gunfight proved costly, as the town Marshal and three others were killed, but the final result was the complete obliteration of the Dalton gang. Of the five robbers, 21-year old Emmitt Dalton was the only one to survive, with over a dozen gunshot wounds and a 14-year prison sentence.

* ''Film/TheStarChamber'': CreatorMichaelDouglas plays an idealistic judge who grows frustrated with clearly guilty criminals being released on technicalities, and is introduced to a group of like-minded judges who have formed a modern-day Star Chamber (based on the Royal British Court of the same name, formed by Henry VII in the late 1400's), through which they organize extrajudicial killings of criminals they couldn't punish through the law. The murders are done by an assassin they contact and pay through proxies for security reasons, meaning he doesn't know who they are, and they don't know who he is. Unfortunately, this means they have no way of cancelling a hit in case new evidence reveals that the victims actually ''are'' innocent.

[[folder:Radio]]
* ''Radio/TheShadow'' from the original pulps had an army of agents who assisted him in his war on crime. This may be the TropeCodifier.
[[/folder]]

* One of the ''BobLeeSwagger'' novels form the SharedUniverse including the novel that ''Film/{{Shooter}}'' was based on has Earl gathering a DreamTeam of six other gunmen (competitive shooters, Texas Rangers, and another WWII vet) to storm a county ruled over by a corrupt sheriff and warden and bring an end to their actions.

%% Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1650995940072617900
%% Please see thread to discuss a new image.

* In ''ComicBook/TheOrder'', the Black Dahlias were originally a gang of vigilantes who attacked pimps and rapists in the Los Angeles area. After the events of ''ComicBook/CivilWar'', they turned to assassinating current and former members of the Order, realizing that they would not be able to continue their former non-lethal activities as long as California had a government-sanctioned super-team running around.

* One of the ''EarlSwagger'' novels form the SharedUniverse including the novel that ''Film/{{Shooter}}'' was based on has Earl gathering a DreamTeam of six other gunmen (competitive shooters, Texas Rangers, and another WWII vet) to storm a county ruled over by a corrupt sheriff and warden and bring an end to their actions.

%%%

%%%

[[quoteright:350: [[VideoGame/GothamCityImpostors https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gotham_city_impostors.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[CaptainObvious Not the real Batman]].]]