> frontier justice came for McElroy courtesy of the residents of Skidmore (population 440 at the time of the crime). Shaken by the man’s ability to evade jail even after being convicted of a near-fatal attack on a grocery store owner... Belkin also details Skidmore’s plague of subsequent violence ... the series persuasively contends that these crimes indicate that the McElroy episode taught younger Skidmore generations that doing as they savagely pleased was OK—and that they could get away with it, because their friends and neighbors wouldn’t speak out against them.
I'm not persuaded, at least by this text. Another possible interpretation is that the legal system around Skidmore was completely unable to convict a repeat violent offender (McElroy), leading to a widespread (correct) belief that the legal system would not also provide any kind of useful restraint to future offenders. Indeed, that interpretation seems more likely to me.
That doesn't make the actions acceptable, of course. But it does put a spotlight on the importance of having a working legal system that provides some reasonable level of protection to the larger community.
I'm with the mob on this one. As another comment put it, he was tried by a jury of his peers... if the justice system cannot help you then you have to take things into your own hands.
Might be hard for all us city slickers on HN to fathom, particularly when these sorts of country towns are frequently mocked or derided by people like us.
This is my prevailing theory as to why minority enclaves in metropolitan areas tend to have higher violent crime. It's not socioeconomic as much as it is folks being forced to mete out justice on their own.
It also seems that this is a little bit different from usual "lynch mobs" or vigilante justice because it was an act of self-defense. This man was going around shooting people and was actively making threats (though not at the exact moment he was shot).
This makes it a little more morally justified than shooting someone who committed some real or perceived wrong, but isn't a current threat to others.
this is promoting a logical fallacy in the belief that there exist a perfect system. this is the same argument that many who are trying to deregulate the government have with the ultimate intention of privatizing everything.
> That doesn't make the actions acceptable, of course. But it does put a spotlight on the importance of having a working legal system that provides some reasonable level of protection to the larger community.
This man was tried and convicted by a jury of his peers, it was just in a different courtroom.
So my family actually knew the sheriff from the next county over. He picked up McElroy a couple times for various things. (I think being drunk etc.). Now when this was explained, this was 26-27 years ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy, but he explained that the man was a monster of an individual. (like huge.) The guy could pick up a hog from the other side of the fence and just walk off with it. Dead lifting a few hundred pounds, that's hard, and really scary to think someone can do that who doesn't like you. You don't cross an individual like that lightly.
You have to remember this was 35+ years ago when this all happened. Things aren't what they used to be now. People didn't make long distance calls back then, because it was too expensive. You lived out it in the middle of nowhere especially back then, you're on your own. No one is coming to help you if you're in serious trouble. My parents had this joke. They said the fire department had a perfect record around where we were. They hadn't saved a house yet. Don't get me wrong, they really respected the firemen. The point was that when you live 20+ miles away from the fire station, there is no possible way they are going to save the house in time. There was no GPS, and 911 had only been invented a little over a decade before. A lot of people didn't even own phones.
It's easy to talk about the rule of law, and how they should let the justice system work it out, but it's a different kind of law in those parts. In a town that size, everyone knows everyone, and you're always talking to someone's brother, cousin, sister, etc. Oh you filed a report against someone?...yeah word gets around. The kind you don't want. Evidence gets "lost", etc. A lot of times it was (and still is in certain places) easier to just keep your mouth shut and move on. I'm not saying I agree with what they did, and I wasn't in their position, so I don't know what I'd do. I can sure see why they thought that was the only recourse they had though.
My grandmother in-law relayed a similar story growing up on a farm in Kansas. When she was a little girl there was a gypsy camp up the river. The gypsies would occasionally steal chickens. Her father eventually put a stop to it when they brazenly tried to use a car (I don’t know where they got it) to steal several chickens. Her father got his hands on one of the women and beat her senseless and one of the men engaged him and he pounded the man till he went limp. They were carted off by the other gypsies. Possibly dead.
I asked “Wasn’t there a sheriff? Didn’t he get in trouble?” She said “no, there was no law”. I said “you mean like no law enforcement?” She said “no, there was no LAW”. Implying it was completely lawless way out there on the farm.
Reminds me a bit of the series Gunsmoke, which I recently watched for the first time online. Surprisingly good. Time frame is earlier but the feeling of "frontier justice" resonates.
That many people feel what the townspeople did here was wrong is fascinating to me. It seems many people believe in certain ideals, as dogma, to the extent that they expect other people to suffer or even die upholding those ideals. The rule of law is important, yes. But why does anyone expect a town to let themselves be maimed and murdered to maintain the rule of law? This is an insane expectation. The people defended themselves. Nobody can criticize them for that. Yes of course it would better if law enforcement was fixed, but people often have no ability to fix that in any reasonable time frame. Meanwhile people are getting murdered.
Perhaps sometimes, people need to do things that, whilst we would do the same in their position, we still want to condemn as wrong.
Not because we disagree with their action, but because we need to signal to the outside world that actions like it are wrong. The circumstances that made such an action acceptable to our minds privately are too nuanced, too easy to stretch to publicly say they made it okay.
As a consolation, in these kinds of cases, taking action and dealing with condemnation is still better than not taking action. Of course, it is not right that people have to choose between two wrongs (living with the situation, or taking action and being condemned for it).
But life isn't fair. That isn't a statement of 'pushing the world into a fair state is infeasible to the point of imposiblity'. Instead, it is a statement that 'there is no state of the world that could be described as fair.
Moreover, the effect of such 'unfair condemnation' is tempered by people like you. I suppose that an actual working society needs both voices. Certainly, the signaling effect does not require that the condemnation be universal, just that it is substantial.
to the extent that they expect other people to suffer or even die upholding those ideals
The key word here being other people. This is why I don't support 'nonviolent' politics; it basically encourages people to be punching bags in hopes of activating the conscience of people higher up the social scale...which is a lot better for the latter group than for the 'nonviolent demonstrators' getting brutalized. Turns out that people's consciences are pretty darn calloused these days, so if you're depending on on other people's empathy to solve your problems you're going to be waiting a long time.
You can only act reasonable so long as your enemy is willing to extend the same courtesy. When someone is this far gone, there's nothing you can really do other than violence, if the legal system has failed you. It sounds like they tried all reasonable options and were left with just one.
It insane and the rule-of-law take is a new one to a very old story. The story surfaces every few years and until this posting the consensus was he got what he deserved. The law fails people on a daily basis.
> It seems many people believe in certain ideals, as dogma, to the extent that they expect other people to suffer or even die upholding those ideals
Good ideals are worth suffering and risk of death. I'm honestly surprised you think otherwise. Not saying this is one of those cases necessarily, just responding to the general idea that principles should never be dogmatic.
TFA doesn't explore at all how McElroy managed to "evade jail" after so many crimes. But it seems that basically there were enough people who would provide false alibis.[0] Maybe because he had threatened them.
A similar episode was the basis for the historical novel "Killing Mister Watson" by Peter Mattheissen, which is one of my favorite books.
A ruthless man named Edgar Watson, who had purportedly killed several people in Oklahoma and Florida, settled in the coastal Everglades of Florida (Chokoloksee area) around the turn of the last century and started a sugar cane plantation. He was known for the 'Watson payday' where, at the end of the harvest season, he would gather all of the drifters and ne'er-do-wells he had hired as fieldhands and gun them down. Additional bad behavior toward his neighbors lead to all of the town's men standing in line and gunning him down as he landed his boat on Chokoloskee Island one day.
Thanks, was going to write that this article was rather disappointing. It is more concerned with metadata about the miniseries and economic consequences rather than the story at the center.
There was a case not too long ago in India where a serial rapist kept evading conviction, so the women in the town gathered together, stabbed him to death, and then all confessed to the crime together. None of them ended up being convicted.
This is a review of the documentary covering a 'Town Bully' who had evaded authorities and continued to harm people repeatedly. In order to protect the community, a group of vigilantes murdered them, and the community refused to issue any statements to authorities regarding anyone's involvement.
I think broadly, I wonder what the place of vigilanteism like this should serve. The sentiments to protect the community against a man who isn't being recieved adequate justice- this in my opinion seems to echo the justification of other movements I'm aware of. There's often community discouse online on what to do with known bad actors when moderatorship isn't adequate for example.
it seems like a more extreme version of jury nullification. if it became widespread, it would essentially be the end of rule-of-law. but in isolated and rare situations, perhaps it's a beneficial escape valve? easy to suggest from my comfy office in a quiet suburb of course.
It sounds like the justice system was either non-functional or corrupt. He committed plenty of crimes that should have put him away for a long time yet didn't. If government isn't serving the people appropriately then it gets replaced. Hard to say if it was really justified here. Maybe a call to the FBI would have been more productive.
> Britt Small, in fact, says that the only mistake made during the entire ordeal was not killing Trena too
Wait, what did Trena do to also be a potential target here? Just guilt by association? Or was she actually actively participating in the criminal acts (and not being coerced to do so, as I imagine one might be before/while/after marrying a violent criminal at age 12)?
The article couldn't, you know, delve into this a bit more?
I remember watching some news program about the event (maybe the 60 minutes piece mentioned in the article). I believe they interviewed Trena and she expressed anger that her husband was murdered and nobody would testify or try to bring the murderer(s) to justice.
My guess is that Small doesn't like that she caused waves after the murder. As opposed to just going along with it.
Someone posted the wikipedia article. Apparently she tried to get one of the shooters prosecuted, started a lawsuit, and was ultimately able to wrangle a settlement.
> She became his accomplice, accompanying McElroy on several of his nocturnal visits to people he had targeted for harassment. As McElroy ranted, she would stand nearby, a firearm in her hands.
Would have liked to have heard more detail about why the local justice system was unable or unwilling to restrain McElroy.
The whole situation raises some interesting parallels to wealthy & powerful malefactors routinely skating past legal consequences in our federal courts system.
> ...an incident that became so notorious they even made a TV movie about it (1991’s In Broad Daylight, starring Brian Dennehy, Cloris Leachman, Marcia Gay Harden and Chris Cooper)
This is still going on in Alaska, many remote areas have some bullies getting away due to no police. I'm sure some end up missing too, but there is a big lack of funding for state marshals to deal with the problems.
OBVIOUSLY this vigilante justice was not planned over the entire time span of McElroy's rein of terror, or it would have happened long before. So there is no intrinsic aspect of flash-mob vigilantism we should be concerned about.
OBVIOUSLY no one here is in a position to exonerate any of the specific crimes McElroy committed.
Sounds like a nice place to live, but if you were to be drawn there because of this they probably wouldn't want you living there. That is the attitude of people who feel resentful that 'doing what needs to be done' has drawn more national attention than the collected crimes of McElroy ever did.
This kind of thing has been happening since humans roamed the plains of Africa. A smallish group of humans can only take so much anti-social behaviour before a permanent solution is required. Now, with larger groupings of towns and cities, society can afford to be somewhat more merciful.
Midwesterner here: Skidmore, MO, is not in The Midwest. It is on The Prairie. Which is the easternmost part of The West.
The Midwest starts west of the the line between Fort Duquesne in Pittsburgh to the southwest corner of New York. It is north of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River. St. Paul is Midwest. Minneapolis is Prairie.
St. Louis is "the Gateway to the West", not "the Gateway to More of the Midwest".
Midwesterner here: grew up in or near Kirksville, MO, about 165 miles east of Skidmore. I hereby swear or affirm that Skidmore is in the Midwest, geographically and culturally, although northern Missouri/southern Iowa have their own version of "midwest". That part of the world is definitely not plains geographically or biologically: it's oak/hickory forest growing on dissected glacial till. You don't get to "plains" geographically until you're well into Kansas at that latitude, and even then, Kansas and Nebraska are culturally midwestern, despite their pretensions to cowboy.
Counterpoint: I grew up 90 miles south from there. I graduated from college in the same county as Skidmore, MO (Nodaway County, NWMSU). I never heard a real person refer to any of those regions as "The Prairie". It's the midwest to the people who live there.
[+] [-] dwheeler|6 years ago|reply
I'm not persuaded, at least by this text. Another possible interpretation is that the legal system around Skidmore was completely unable to convict a repeat violent offender (McElroy), leading to a widespread (correct) belief that the legal system would not also provide any kind of useful restraint to future offenders. Indeed, that interpretation seems more likely to me.
That doesn't make the actions acceptable, of course. But it does put a spotlight on the importance of having a working legal system that provides some reasonable level of protection to the larger community.
[+] [-] tomc1985|6 years ago|reply
Might be hard for all us city slickers on HN to fathom, particularly when these sorts of country towns are frequently mocked or derided by people like us.
[+] [-] jcims|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fortran77|6 years ago|reply
This makes it a little more morally justified than shooting someone who committed some real or perceived wrong, but isn't a current threat to others.
They stopped him because he was dangerous.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tootie|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whenanother|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ProAm|6 years ago|reply
This man was tried and convicted by a jury of his peers, it was just in a different courtroom.
[+] [-] kemiller2002|6 years ago|reply
You have to remember this was 35+ years ago when this all happened. Things aren't what they used to be now. People didn't make long distance calls back then, because it was too expensive. You lived out it in the middle of nowhere especially back then, you're on your own. No one is coming to help you if you're in serious trouble. My parents had this joke. They said the fire department had a perfect record around where we were. They hadn't saved a house yet. Don't get me wrong, they really respected the firemen. The point was that when you live 20+ miles away from the fire station, there is no possible way they are going to save the house in time. There was no GPS, and 911 had only been invented a little over a decade before. A lot of people didn't even own phones.
It's easy to talk about the rule of law, and how they should let the justice system work it out, but it's a different kind of law in those parts. In a town that size, everyone knows everyone, and you're always talking to someone's brother, cousin, sister, etc. Oh you filed a report against someone?...yeah word gets around. The kind you don't want. Evidence gets "lost", etc. A lot of times it was (and still is in certain places) easier to just keep your mouth shut and move on. I'm not saying I agree with what they did, and I wasn't in their position, so I don't know what I'd do. I can sure see why they thought that was the only recourse they had though.
[+] [-] ryanmarsh|6 years ago|reply
I asked “Wasn’t there a sheriff? Didn’t he get in trouble?” She said “no, there was no law”. I said “you mean like no law enforcement?” She said “no, there was no LAW”. Implying it was completely lawless way out there on the farm.
Crazy to think about. This was in the 1930’s.
[+] [-] maxden|6 years ago|reply
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-03/a-dog-act-homicide-on...
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gameswithgo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rocqua|6 years ago|reply
As a consolation, in these kinds of cases, taking action and dealing with condemnation is still better than not taking action. Of course, it is not right that people have to choose between two wrongs (living with the situation, or taking action and being condemned for it).
But life isn't fair. That isn't a statement of 'pushing the world into a fair state is infeasible to the point of imposiblity'. Instead, it is a statement that 'there is no state of the world that could be described as fair.
Moreover, the effect of such 'unfair condemnation' is tempered by people like you. I suppose that an actual working society needs both voices. Certainly, the signaling effect does not require that the condemnation be universal, just that it is substantial.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|6 years ago|reply
The key word here being other people. This is why I don't support 'nonviolent' politics; it basically encourages people to be punching bags in hopes of activating the conscience of people higher up the social scale...which is a lot better for the latter group than for the 'nonviolent demonstrators' getting brutalized. Turns out that people's consciences are pretty darn calloused these days, so if you're depending on on other people's empathy to solve your problems you're going to be waiting a long time.
[+] [-] Akinato|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsder|6 years ago|reply
Humans normally have a strong aversion to murdering one another. Lots of soldiers in WWII simply would NOT fire their gun under any circumstances.
The fact that the situation got to the point where an entire town decided to murder a man speaks to a series of epic failures on a lot of fronts.
[+] [-] chrisdhoover|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] naasking|6 years ago|reply
Good ideals are worth suffering and risk of death. I'm honestly surprised you think otherwise. Not saying this is one of those cases necessarily, just responding to the general idea that principles should never be dogmatic.
[+] [-] mirimir|6 years ago|reply
0) http://mentalfloss.com/article/574749/ken-mcelroy-murder-ski...
[+] [-] cossatot|6 years ago|reply
A ruthless man named Edgar Watson, who had purportedly killed several people in Oklahoma and Florida, settled in the coastal Everglades of Florida (Chokoloksee area) around the turn of the last century and started a sugar cane plantation. He was known for the 'Watson payday' where, at the end of the harvest season, he would gather all of the drifters and ne'er-do-wells he had hired as fieldhands and gun them down. Additional bad behavior toward his neighbors lead to all of the town's men standing in line and gunning him down as he landed his boat on Chokoloskee Island one day.
[+] [-] futureastronaut|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] commandlinefan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SolaceQuantum|6 years ago|reply
I think broadly, I wonder what the place of vigilanteism like this should serve. The sentiments to protect the community against a man who isn't being recieved adequate justice- this in my opinion seems to echo the justification of other movements I'm aware of. There's often community discouse online on what to do with known bad actors when moderatorship isn't adequate for example.
[+] [-] leetcrew|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tootie|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gwbas1c|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] douglasfshearer|6 years ago|reply
An episode that stuck in my head.
https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-66-bully-5-5-2017/
[+] [-] yellowapple|6 years ago|reply
Wait, what did Trena do to also be a potential target here? Just guilt by association? Or was she actually actively participating in the criminal acts (and not being coerced to do so, as I imagine one might be before/while/after marrying a violent criminal at age 12)?
The article couldn't, you know, delve into this a bit more?
[+] [-] Verdex|6 years ago|reply
My guess is that Small doesn't like that she caused waves after the murder. As opposed to just going along with it.
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Anthony-G|6 years ago|reply
> She became his accomplice, accompanying McElroy on several of his nocturnal visits to people he had targeted for harassment. As McElroy ranted, she would stand nearby, a firearm in her hands.
[+] [-] AndrewBissell|6 years ago|reply
The whole situation raises some interesting parallels to wealthy & powerful malefactors routinely skating past legal consequences in our federal courts system.
[+] [-] kenforthewin|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] betenoire|6 years ago|reply
> ...an incident that became so notorious they even made a TV movie about it (1991’s In Broad Daylight, starring Brian Dennehy, Cloris Leachman, Marcia Gay Harden and Chris Cooper)
[+] [-] IronWolve|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jascii|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] praptak|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] myrandomcomment|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prestonbriggs|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HocusLocus|6 years ago|reply
OBVIOUSLY no one here is in a position to exonerate any of the specific crimes McElroy committed.
Sounds like a nice place to live, but if you were to be drawn there because of this they probably wouldn't want you living there. That is the attitude of people who feel resentful that 'doing what needs to be done' has drawn more national attention than the collected crimes of McElroy ever did.
[+] [-] sunstone|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmix|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logfromblammo|6 years ago|reply
The Midwest starts west of the the line between Fort Duquesne in Pittsburgh to the southwest corner of New York. It is north of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River. St. Paul is Midwest. Minneapolis is Prairie.
St. Louis is "the Gateway to the West", not "the Gateway to More of the Midwest".
[+] [-] bediger4000|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tlb|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrLeap|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theandrewbailey|6 years ago|reply
Then what's this "Upper Midwest" place I keep hearing about?[0] It definitely extends the Midwest past the Mississippi.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Midwest
[+] [-] 420codebro|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]