Vigilante ‘justice’ is a centuries-old American tradition, but it’s sad that many are celebrating a murder
Vigilantes have a long, bloody history, both in the world and here in our country, where killing has always been highly popular.
Two recent examples of vigilantism were in the news recently. They drew very mixed reactions from people, usually depending on their political and social views.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed as he walked down a New York sidewalk early Wednesday, Dec. 4. Thompson had grown rich, making more than $10 million a year, by leading a program of denying coverage. It spiked corporate profit from $12 billion annually to $16 billion since he rose to the top job in 2021.
His death was met with an outpouring of anger and resentment against insurance companies and their highly paid executives. Online, people responded with dark humor, saying Thompson would receive their thoughts snd prayers, but not coverage.
His requests to live past 50 and enjoy time with his wife, children, family and friends had been denied. Any effort to save him was caught up in red tape and would take months, possibly years to untangle.
It was a very telling reaction. Millions of Americans are angry — furious, actually — about inequities in the system. They receive bills that will devastate them financially when they or a loved one are ill.
They see their claims denied by the insurers they pay on a faithful basis. Requests for coverage and treatment are often processed very, very slowly, but payments are quickly received.
On Monday, authorities arrested a suspect in the shooting named Luigi Mangione as he ate at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.
Shell casings found at the murder scene reportedly had the words “deny,” “delay,” and possibly “depose” written on them. Those terms echo the phrases used by insurance companies to avoid authorizing or paying for treatments.
The publicity surrounding them caused an obscure 2010 book, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It,” to gain new attention and sales.
Mangione, who comes from a wealthy, influential family, graduated as the valedictorian from Gilman School, an all-boys high school in Baltimore. He earned undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, and was described as bright and outgoing.
However, he also suffered from a serious back condition and said Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber, while violent and deservedly imprisoned, should also be seen as “an extreme political revolutionary.” Mangione had isolated himself from family and friends in recent months.
The seeds of the deadly flower that bloomed last week were all there.
When he was arrested, he was carrying a three-page manifesto with the words “These parasites had it coming” and “I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to done.”
Shortly before Mangione was taken into custody, a New York jury found Marine veteran Daniel Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide for the death of Jordan Neely on May 1, 2023. A judge had dismissed a second-degree manslaughter charge last week.
Penny was on a subway with several other people when Neely boarded it and began acting irrationally. Some witnesses said he made death threats, and Penny said that is why he placed Neely in a chokehold that lasted between five and six minutes. When police arrived, he was dying, and Penny was later arrested.
“I wasn’t trying to injure him,” Penny told detectives. “I’m just trying to keep him from hurting anyone else. He’s threatening people. That’s what we learn in the Marine Corps.”
Some have praised him as a hero who saved lives. Others say he overreacted and could have simply held Neely. Others say race was a factor, since Penny is white and Neely, who was homeless and had a history of mental problems, was Black.
After the verdict, Neely’s father cursed and Penny smiled. Outside the courthouse, two groups, one celebrating the verdict, the other outraged by it, held demonstrations.
This was reminiscent of another subway case, when Bernard Goetz shot four teens who he said were trying to rob him on Dec. 22, 1984. None of them died, but Darrell Cabey was paralyzed and suffered brain damage.
After he was shot the first time, Cabey fell to the floor of the subway. Goetz, it was revealed in a trial, responded by saying, “You don't look so bad. Here's another,” and shooting him a second time.
During an interview with police, he said he wanted to gouge out the eyes of one of the teens using his keys. Goetz said he did have one regret.
“If I had more bullets, I would have shot them all again and again,” he said. “My problem was I ran out of bullets.”
After the shooting, Goetz, who said he had been assaulted on a subway in 1981, fled to Bennington, Vt., but he finally surrendered to police nine days later and was charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment, and several firearms offenses.
A jury found him not guilty of all the serious counts, convicting him of carrying an unlicensed firearm.
Goetz became known as the “Subway Vigilante,” a real-life version of the family man turned killer played by Charles Bronson in the “Death Wish” movies. His racist history emerged, with him admitting to having used hateful terms for Blacks and Hispanics.
Goetz is still around, and pops up on the news from time to time. He was ordered to pay $43 million in damages after a civil suit but later said he had not paid a dime. He ran for mayor of New York in 2001, getting 1,049 votes.
Vigilantes have their supporters, even in politics. Maybe Mangione has a figure in office.
People have been taking the law into their hands for centuries. Before the USA even existed, there were vigilantes here.
From 1766-71, the Regulator Movement in North Carolina was a rebellion against corrupt colonial officials and wealthy plantation owners. Financial grievances often play a major role in vigilantism.
Eight people were hanged by the Regulators (an incident commemorated in the woodcarving above) and several officials forced from office. The rebels wanted secret ballot voting, progressive taxation, land reform, and more transparent government.
They were crushed by an army led by Royal Gov. William Tryon and more than 100 died in a battle. Several others were hanged. Tryon was hailed as a hero for putting down the uprising, but reporters at the time and historians today paint a much cloudier picture of those bloody days.
A decade later, many of the Regulators opposed American independence and were loyal to the British crown. President Jimmy Carter included the Regulators in his 2003 historical book, “The Hornet's Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War.”
When I lived in Montana, I learned about the vigilantes who operated in the Bannack and Virginia City area in 1862-63 when gold was being mined and people robbed and murdered.
Vigilantes lynched Bannack Sheriff Henry Plummer, who had a side gig as an outlaw and killer, on Jan. 10, 1863. Did Plummer deserve this rough brand of frontier justice?
On May 7, 1993, a mock trial was held in the Virginia City Courthouse and the jury was divided six to six, meaning Plummer would have been turned loose. But it was a little late for that.
One incident of instant “justice” was captured on camera.
On March 16, 1984, Gary Plauché shot and killed Jeff Doucet as he walked through the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport. Doucet was accused of kidnapping Plauché’s son Jody, taking him from Louisiana to California and sexually assaulting him.
Plauché stood near a bank of phones with his back turned as an officer walked Doucet through the airport. As a TV camera recorded it, Plauché shot Doucet in the head; he fell into a coma and died the next day.
Plauché was charged with second-degree murder but agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter. He was given a seven-year suspended sentence with five years or probation and ordered to perform 300 hours of community service
Plauché was unrepentant, saying “if somebody did it to your kid, you'd do it too.”
In a 2024 interview, his son Jody said he considers him “the greatest dad of all time.”
How will people remember the man who shot the deranged homeless man in the New York subway? How about the assassin who executed the insurance company CEO?
How many more cases of street justice will we see? Will acting as the prosecutor, judge and executioner become a common event? Will people who see how Mangione is being praised and lionized be compelled to follow in his bloody footsteps?
Corporate officials are already surrounding themselves with armed guards and retreating behind locked doors and gates. The divide between them and the people they exploit will only grow wider.
Which will likely lead to more vigilantes.
Fourth-generation South Dakotan Tom Lawrence has written for several newspapers and websites in South Dakota and other states for four decades. He has contributed to The New York Times, NPR, The London Telegraph, The Daily Beast and other media outlets. Do not republish without permission.
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
