Armed vigilante gangs patrolling for looters in Japan’s lawless disaster zones have been coming under scrutiny after reports surfaced of one group brutalising an unresisting looter they cornered, in a scene which would be more associated with post-apocalyptic fiction than Japan’s supposedly orderly response to the devastating quake.
A member of an NPO conducting relief operations in the area accompanied a vigilante corps on their patrols of a ruined Iwate prefecture port town, and reported frontier justice is in effect:
“This port town suffered devastating damage from the tsunami, and the law and order situation has been deteriorating.
A surviving group of firemen formed a vigilante corps to patrol a district, mostly comprised of ruined houses.
The trouble started on the second day of patrols.”
The vigilante group were patrolling ruined houses at 1AM when they spotted a suspicious vehicle. After checking inside, they found a man in his forties rummaging through a room.
“Who’s he?”
When he noticed the group, he immediately tried to flee.
“You’re a looter then!?”
The 5 vigilantes soon cornered him. He started swinging a crowbar around.
However, the 5 had armed themselves with iron pipes for defence. After a scuffle, the man was subdued.
The problem was what came after…
“The 5 men started beating and kicking the man. He had already stopped resisting.
I told them ‘It’ll be dangerous if you don’t stop’ but the vigilante leader just said ‘With a guy like this, with things as they are even if we leave him as a corpse nobody would know, would they?’
Things got a bit heated there…”
After this the NPO staffer persuaded them to hand him over to police, who were summoned afterwards. As the man came at them with the crowbar first, the vigilantes were held to be blameless.
Japan has been praised for an orderly response to the crisis and a general absence of the style of Mad Max anarchy observed under in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but with large areas devoid of power, police or people, opportunists have been attracted all the same, and police in the region report making a number of arrests for looting and even violation.
damn just damn
Vigilante gangs! That’s just too cool!
😀
doesn’t matter now. in the current situation of things there, everyone just doesn’t know how to start anew with things such as the economic position of their country. anyone who still wants something to have to start as a capital would really be there and loot. the vigilante group didn’t have much notification and security of the area. the looter in suspicion didn’t also notify the group that he was going in and what he’d be doing. i mean, if something happens to him, it won’t be just his fault. both are at fault however to the eyes of the victims, the looter is more at fault. one of the reasons is that he was there when everyone else was asleep. 1AM with a crowbar? now who would go to such lengths with that in hand?
What about their humanity?
TADAAAA! It’s paaaah, it’s gone.
>:-]
Hmm serial killer now has a place to dump all the bodies
Nothing like blaming a natural disaster as an alaby lol
Yep. It’s a known fact that tsunami victims don’t drown. They are beaten to death with steel pipes.
🙂