Police powers are given to the police from the people and when the police and justice system fails then it is within the authority of the people to withdraw those powers and take them upon themselves.

When law and order failes then juries refused to convict peole who defend them selves.

This guy had survived the attack and was shooting when the kids fled. So he is guilty of abusing his right to use a weapon.

You mean like the choices I had last November? :-)

(Just having fun at this point — but come to think of it. . .)

People are not peaceful and accommodating by nature. We are brutish creatures. Give up rule of law, you might keep some semblance of order for a while, but eventually human nature will take over, and it won’t be pretty.

Some might contend that what we have at present is chaos, existing due to our laws being largely applied arbitrarily and for the convenience of the state and its minions.

For instance, in Gold Rush Alaska there was at times a single Judge and US Marshall assigned for the entire Territory. In those circumstances out of necessity miners formed their own “Miner’s Courts” which imposed what was, in effect, the common law.

Citizens, acting in concert, to provide for enforcement of law and justice with at least an attempt made to maintain some sort of mutually agreed upon order with a defined due process. It wasn’t just an individual or group acting as “judge, jury and executioner” at will.

The former is part of the American legal tradition, the latter is barbarism.

Shooting a fleeing kid is NOT anything relating to Justice (capitalization deliberate). It is retaliation with only vengeance as justification. Which is no justification at all for action by a civilized person who claims to respect the law.

It depends on what you mean by “maintain order.” If by maintain order, you mean deciding to act as judge, jury and executioner on someone who commits simple assault against you, then I would challenge you to go try it and see what happens.

DePaul would have been justified in using force (but not deadly force) to detail the kids until police could arrive, authorized under this statute:

A private person who makes, or assists another private person in making a lawful arrest is justified in the use of any force which he would be justified in using if he were summoned or directed by a peace officer to make such arrest, except that he is justified in the use of deadly force only when he believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury to himself or another.

It’s hard to argue that deadly force was justified when the kids who attacked DePaul were apparently in the process of fleeing, and by DePaul’s own statement were 200+ feet away.

But even detaining people for police is legally extremely risky, as a private citizen does not have qualified immunity. Meaning if you’re wrong, you can be held civilly and criminally liable in situations where a police officer would have immunity.

But nonetheless, if DePaul had chased down the kids, and used a reasonable amount of force to detain them until police arrived, I would be arguing he acted as a good citizen rather than acting as a jackass. It’s not “taking the law into your own hands” to act as an agent of the law, within the law, but it sure as hell is to exact your own retribution. The latter is what DePaul appears to be guilty of.

Main Entry:
vig·i·lan·te Listen to the pronunciation of vigilante
Pronunciation:
\ˌvi-jə-ˈlan-tē\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Spanish, watchman, guard, from vigilante vigilant, from Latin vigilant-, vigilans
Date:
1856

: a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law are viewed as inadequate) ; broadly : a self-appointed doer of justice
— vig·i·lan·tism Listen to the pronunciation of vigilantism \-ˈlan-ˌti-zəm\ noun

I’ll concede the point, and agree that he just stands accused several counts of several violent crimes. But I stand by my assertion that people being able to assert their own retribution and justice is anarchy, rather than rule of law.

I have to disagree Sebastian. a vigilante, according to the actual definition, is one who watches. Vigili is still to this day what a local Police officer is called in Italy. Vigili, from the Latin, “to watch.” the perjorative “vigilante” is the person who takes it upon him or herself to punish those he believes are criminals, like in comic books.

“Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence”

The whole argument that police are the only ones who are supposed to maintain order is false. it would be nice if all we had to do was report the crimes and the police would take the offender away permanently, but in this world, we have to sometimes help out. We are police. the police are us.