The Rise of the Vigilante?

We joke - with good reason - that all CPD policy originates in New York. And where they can't make it work, CPD really fucks it up beyond any semblance of functioning policy.

AceofSpades blog spots a trend we could get behind:

• I keep saying this, but if the police cannot or will not protect the citizenry, the citizenry will resort to the means of maintaining order that persisted for 10,000 years before the advent of bobbies: self-help and vigilantism.

Here's the story:

• An enraged driver took the law into his own hands in Brooklyn Monday when he fatally mowed down a cyclist after the pedal-pusher tried to break into his car and then slashed the motorist’s girlfriend, police sources said.
  
  Korey Johnson was leaving Woodhull Hospital with his girlfriend at around 6 a.m. Monday morning when he spotted Donald Robert allegedly trying to break into several vehicles parked on Marcus Garvey Boulevard — including Johnson’s Jeep Grand Cherokee, according to a high-ranking law-enforcement source.
  
  Johnson, 41, confronted the would-be burglar and Robert answered by slashing his girlfriend on the arm with a screwdriver, the police source said. Robert, 47, then hopped on a bicycle and sped off — at which point Johnson got into his Jeep and zoomed the wrong way down the boulevard in pursuit of Robert.
  
  The chase spilled onto Broadway, and Johnson caught up to Robert near Ellery Street, where the Jeep hit three parked cars and rammed into the cyclist, the sources said.

The suspect car burglar had quite the record - nearly forty arrests, and the initial victim seems to know that any justice meted out wouldn't be by the system. So he went around the system.

Amusingly, the initial victim, now offender, himself had forty arrests. So it's what we'd call "asshole on asshole crime" and two mopes off the street - one dead, one arrested. But we don't think anyone is going to be very surprised at people taking the law into their own hands if they think (or know) that the police can't/won't/refuse/are reluctant to take action.