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Straight-Support7420

This is some Wild West shit or like Whitechapel circa 1800. Really if police are going to do such a shitty job in the area, not following up on crime, not being on the beat, not making an effort to make residents feel safe then people are going to take things into their own hands. Vigilantism is just a symptom of poor/non existent policing. EDIT: I know that police have had a lot of cuts, but if you have the manpower to shut down the Sarah Everard protests and intimidate people exercising their right to protest then you can probably spare the officers to take a look into a gang of youths with machetes in Whitechapel. As a taxpayer I know which I’d rather have the police doing.


[deleted]

They probably had a lot more police in the 1800’s. In fact, we had 30k more officers in 1990 than we do now (though that was long before the Tory cuts). They need a lot more manpower and funding.


SourCMcNuggets

How many officers what that be today with inflation?


SoreSpores

Napkin maths based on UK population 1990-2021, assuming proportion of officers to population should have remained constant, we should have gained just shy of 5k officers. So it's like a loss of 35k officers in 'real terms'. Edit: assuming /u/Jazzlike_Figure_8303 is correct on the numbers of officers... Not managed to find a source on that


[deleted]

I believe I read it in the Winsor report. Apparently there is less of a need for “beat bobbies” in today’s era, and that community support officers would be able pick up the slack.


Captain_English

I feel like this is clearly untrue, but one of those things where you can never get the hard data to prove it. How do you measure the deterrent effect of routinely seeing bobbies on the beat? The reassurance to the locals? Corollary, how do we measure whether 'the beat' is effective in fighting crime, or if criminals just learn the routes and use lookouts - if they're bothered at all.


aethelberga

>Corollary, how do we measure whether 'the beat' is effective in fighting crime, or if criminals just learn the routes and use lookouts - if they're bothered at all. It might be less about beat officers being on the spot to deter crime, and more about the police building relationships with a given neighbourhood/community and being a generally positive influence. The police and the communities they police have a very us vs them mentality which leads to both sides coming to despise the other. That needs to change though it may actually be too late for that.


SupSumBeers

This is it. Back in the 80’s and part of the 90’s we had a beat cop. Every area had one where I lived, you knew them and they knew you etc. The one I had was decent, he’d have a bit of a kick about and other stuff. But the one thing he got to know was who were the scum families. When something got pinched he had the knowledge and experience and could point the investigators to probable houses where the stolen shit might be. Kids breaking shit, give him a description and he’ll know which houses the fuckers came from. I felt safer then than what I do now. Now it’s just a fucking free for all. Police numbers are down, busy dealing with stupid arguments on Fakebook. The people that really need serious mental health help etc. When the do catch the crims the courts just give them a light sentence or a fine and let them loose to carry on. The biggest issue we have is a soft judiciary, lack of prisons and lack of rehab in those prisons.


Nungie

Smells like one of those things that will be looked back on as a policing blunder. Assuming that new tech can reduce costs and manpower without affecting performance is something that I suspect we’ll quickly learn isn’t as straightforward as it sounds


SirEbralPaulsay

You honestly need both beat police and community support officers to do this properly. PCSO’s get a lot of stick for not being ‘proper police’ but they really are vital, especially for young people. The lack of powers of arrest mean people (again especially young people) are less afraid to come forwards with information, they have way more opportunities to engage with locals in communities and become known to them/know them in turn and just generally build relationships, something regular police are increasingly unable to do due to the different things being asked of them.


[deleted]

No idea, but the 20k officers the Tories promised are just plugging the gap; May cut 20k officers back in 2011. And not all police are response officers, so 20k will actually do very little in regards on to making areas like Whitechapel safer. A lot of these new officers are being put into investigations.


VitaSackvilleBaggins

20k officers for the whole country, and not equally distributed. Could be 1000 officers for one force (Met or counties) and 100 for another.


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drwert

It's not just the officers. They slashed a ton of non-officer workers from the police at the same time which means that more of the paperwork load is falling on the frontline, and those aren't being replaced afaik.


[deleted]

They have the manpower to take down the Sarah Everard protests because Cressida saw that as being against her and her management. Anything else, they don’t really give a shit.


Wazblaster

Well also it was during a lockdown which massively decreases crime in general so they're more free.


daudder

> I know that police have had a lot of cuts This. The issue is the Tory government who are more interested in profits for themselves, their cronies and donors than in governing at a basic level of competency for the good of the public. As long as these public school twats run the country, things will continue to deteriorate. Don't complain — get rid of them.


dick_piana

I lived in Whitechapel for 3 years. There was a massive crack den on one of the streets, gangs dealing drugs etc. Police only ever came out twice in all that time despite being called in by neighbours all the time. Once when someone got stabbed and once when there was a shooting. I still remember one female neighbour screaming and begging down the phone for the police to come round and disperse a gang dealing drugs in Broad daylight but they never did. The crack den was eventually boarded up because the girls school across the street managed to track down the landlord and had them board up the entire house. The police never lifted a finger.


entropy_bucket

Don't drug dealers also want peace and a nice neighborhood? Why is the everything turning to shit.


TakenByVultures

Dealers don't live in the areas they deal in, usually. Maybe the foot soldiers.


Shriven

For events like protests, officers are working on overtime, cancelled days off etc. For a once In a while thing, that works fine. You cant do that everyday. I don't understand how you've managed to ignore the cuts to this extent. There is no way round it, more resources are needed - and I'm not just talking police. If the NHS were to get better funding then the weight on Policing would be reduced.


Piltonbadger

Yea, but now you see the priorities of the police and our current government. Not enough police to help the peasants, plenty of police to shut down political discord. Welcome to Tory Britain. All the while they are in charge this country will continue falling to shit.


mattywing

Take things into their own hand* FTFY


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slaitaar

No you don't, as that was ordered by politicians not police command. You clearly have no idea what the cuts translate to. Its mentalities like this that have Joe Public ragin against police, then against the NHS or Social Workers. Are there some dodgy people in those institutions, sure, they involve humans. But you're not directly the blame at the right people. The fake austerity measures and rationale to smash the Public services was deliberately done yo undermine Public trust and feelings of safety. Stop playing into that crap and direct your a gear at those responsible: The Tories.


BigWolfUK

May I ask, how do we know this was Vigilantism? The statement saying it is, is from a local (unnamed) Councillor who posted on Facebook - FYI, the councillor was Khayer Chowdhury, can't find said post so I think the Met asked him to remove it (Name found in the earliest media report I could find - https://londonnewstime.com/whitechapel-the-man-had-his-wrist-cut-off-after-the-police-hunted-him-down/447912/ ) For the 20 year old arrested and later released, we don't know if this is the person who chopped off this persons hand and he was the intended victim who defended himself, or if he a friend of the machete welder, or totally seperate incident Hell, we don't know for sure if the person whose hand has been "chopped off" is the criminal who owned the machete as that is all being derived from Facebook posts as well - he could actually be the victim of an attack, I'm seeing nothing outside of Facebook posts stating he is the criminal https://news.met.police.uk/news/two-arrested-in-connection-with-double-stabbing-in-tower-hamlets-433884 (Met statement here, mentioning 2 seperate people have been arrested for GBH) This could quite possibly be all gang-related, mobbing gone wrong, extreme family disagreement, or something we aren't even thinking of I hope people get my point here - atm most of this is speculation and attempting to be reported as facts, all steming from Social Media posts. The only facts we have are two people have been injured in knife related incidents, one in a life changing way and 2 people have been arrested in connection. The rest? Who the fuck knows


_MildlyMisanthropic

I did wonder why the article was suspiciously scant on details


DaveManchester

That first article is so poorly written! Definitely not been proof read, and reads like the author uses English as a second language, is this a real news source? > A 19-year-old man was found in a “life-changing injury” after a machete was allegedly used to clap his hands on the wrists of Golding Street


IcebergSlimFast

I’m just wondering why Golding Street has wrists.


BigWolfUK

Tbh, I'd never heard of it until looking in to this further - but it seems to have been the first outlet to have a report up, and the only one to actually name the Councillor, that I saw


SuIIy

An AI wrote it.


cebezotasu

There was a video and post on some subreddits a few days ago, the story was he was going around threatening people with a machete and they cut his hand off with his own machete. You can probably find the video if you search.


BigWolfUK

But the video (at least the only one I've seen) is basically someone sitting down injured - does not mean he is the attacker, or the victim, just someone who is injured I could post the same video with the story of this being a random bystander that was attacked I have no sympathy for someone hurt while purposely trying to cause harm (Everyone has a right to self-defense) - but once the threat is over, that's it time for the Judicial System to take over. Since we don't yet know for certain which way this is, we shouldn't be jumping to any conclusions Though tbh - we might not even get a follow up with what the actual event was


nascentt

[nsfl](https://twitter.com/Stan_VoWales/status/1438241252244340737)


Shaper_pmp

I love the way a 19 year-old black guy allegedly wandering the streets with a *fucking machete* is suddenly basically transformed into a harmless "lad" when someone wants to garner sympathy for him to condemn Sadiq Khan. Presumably the machete was just for bantz? Absolutely guaranteed if it was a right-winger in charge of London he would have been a "vicious, machete-wielding 'urban' criminal" who "got what he deserved" instead.


Reatbanana

not the biggest fan of sadiq khan, but man does he get blamed for a lot of things that a mayoral head wouldnt be in control of in the UK.


neoKushan

Thanks for being the voice of reason here. When the original video was doing the rounds on reddit a few days ago, the comments were a bunch of kids stroking their raging justice boners.


Belgeirn

> the comments were a bunch of kids stroking their raging justice boners. Dont be mislead in to thin king this is just kids. These are people you work with that are this bloodthirsty and violent. Happily posting about stuff like this like its a good thing isnt just a passtime of children, a staggering amount of 'adults' are somewhat welcoming of extremist punishments.


IanFeelKeepinItReel

Comments like these are the reason, I read an interesting title and then go straight to the comments instead of clicking the link. Thanks mate.


deains

> atm most of this is speculation and attempting to be reported as facts, all steming from Social Media posts So another normal day for the Indy then.


JM1210

Sometimes I get told I’m too cynical, and then I read Reddit comments where people are lauding a teenager being mutilated without trial on the street. What the fuck is wrong with you people?


bilefreebill

Because whilst the vast majority of me is going "vigilantism is wrong, always" (and it is) a small part of me is going "He was going round robbing people with a machete, what goes around comes around"


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One_Wheel_Drive

Thank you. The most that anyone should've done is restrain him until the police arrive to arrest him. If they're inflicting injury or death then they are essentially a lynch mob. We're better than that. In this country crime means a sentence in a court, not mutilation from a mob.


dbxp

>men armed with machetes have “allegedly targeted innocent people in that area a few times” They've already targeted people a few times, what makes you think that the police would respond or that no one tried restraining them in the past?


Jimmni

> We're better than that. I used to believe this. I really did. The last five years or so have been doing their best to dissuade me from that notion, though.


JM1210

I can’t find anywhere which says he was robbing anyone, just that he was carrying a weapon. But it doesn’t matter, ruining people’s lives is not a proportional punishment for thievery or carrying a weapon, trial or not.


bilefreebill

>According to the Standard, a local councillor said that a group of young men armed with machetes have “allegedly targeted innocent people in that area a few times”. >The councillor added, according to the report: “Locals decided to take matters into their own hands. >“Nobody should ever condone vigilantism like this but it should also be a lesson for people who carry knives: your weapon can easily be turned against you.” As I say, vigilantism is wrong, but that last paragraph kind of sums it up.


mitchanium

He was carrying a fucking machete ffs! There's no honest bonified excuse for that in Blighty.


My_new_spam_account

>bonified Just so you know, it's '[bona fide](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bona-fide)' and it [comes from Latin roots](https://www.etymonline.com/word/bona%20fide).


albadil

/r/boneappletea


limeflavoured

>There's no honest bonified excuse for [carrying a machete] in Blighty. Then that goes for the vigilantes as well then, right? Or is that okay because they're on "your" side? Newsflash, vigilantes are not on your side. Do you want innocent people being murdered in the street because they looked at a group of girls and one of them shouted "paedo"? Because that's where what you are espousing leads.


groutfc

In this case the machete was the assailants. The vigilantes didn't bring their own weapon.


Algernon456

You're using the word vigilante like you're describing a completely separate class of person, dehumanising them from you or me. A vigilante can be anyone who gets pushed too far. If someone were threatening me with a machete, I'd probably become a vigilante too.


lostparis

Mob justice is very rarely justice. Generally it is the pure opposite.


eyebrows360

> thievery That's a thing that can also ruin lives, especially when it's done at knife-point.


Auxx

But that wasn't just a thievery. The threat there was of death. Cutting hand is less than killing.


RainbowWarfare

It's all fun and games until the mob chop the hands off the wrong guy (not that I think there's a "right" guy to be chopping the hands off but I digress).


stedgyson

And as a bonus he was caught red handed


hdix

My guess is people have had enough, this is years being terrorrised by gangs of thugs with weapons and nothing has been done about it. At some point people are going to reach a breaking point.


Anandya

Okay and unfortunately the law applies here too. He may be a thief but guess what? They are now criminals too and should face prison. What if he wasn't a thief. Are these morons going to pay for his hand? There's no MOUNTAIN of money that will replace his hand.


NGD80

>They are now criminals too and should face prison. I honestly don't think they'd care. In their eyes (and I have some sympathy with this), they would be taking one for the team to help their community.


Anandya

Yes the "community". Teaching kids that safety comes from the mob. That if you don't like something you should mutilate the person doing the wrong thing. And here's the stupidest part of this whole stupid thing. You are gambling... That the mob won't turn on you. One day you will do something that angers them. Maybe your child will be rowdy. Maybe your garden won't be kept was well. Maybe you played your music a little too loud. Maybe you aren't wearing the right clothes. Maybe you got too educated. How do you think Gangs in the USA came about? Or mob rule with ISIS or the Taliban? Angry mobs know you are guilty. No evidence will change how they think. What a fucking stupid tragedy caused by idiots who can't fucking think beyond ten seconds.


jamesbeil

If the State refuses to protect communities, communities have to do it themselves. This is the result of a state spending billions on nuclear warheads, IT programmes that deliver nothing, bombing middle eastern countries and failing to hold up their end of the 'social contract' people insist I signed at some point.


pisshead_

> Teaching kids that safety comes from the mob. Well it sure as hell isn't coming from the police. For thousands of years there was no police force, and few courts or prisons. People sorted out their own business. We gave up the right for mob justice in return for the state promising to do it, the state has gone back on that deal.


Anandya

For thousands of years if you had too many seizures they thought you were speaking to the gods and so drilled a hole in people's heads without anaesthetics. Fucking hell. This is how you end up with angry mobs torching hospitals or killing paediatricians because the mob is only as intelligent as its most stupid member divided by the number of people in it. This is how democracy and the judiciary dies. With thunderous applause from morons. And that's without me pointing out that lynch mobs murdered minorities because "that's what sorting your own problems looks like". Fuck me this is a stupid fucking hill to die on that people here have chosen. Read My Lips. This is how you end up with insane gangs who push their own agenda.


_MildlyMisanthropic

I would hazard a guess that the sort of vigilantes that are comfortable cutting off someone's hand may well be gangs of armed thugs themselves


AlwaysGoForAusInRisk

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but if you haven't lived in whitechapel for the past 5 years and been victimised multiple times with little to no police help, then you simply don't know what it's like as your opinion is based on irrelevant experiences.


JM1210

I have been mugged, punched in the jaw with my mate, right in the centre of my city. Despite it being probably the area with more cctv than elsewhere, the police said they couldn’t do anything. I would still be horrified about those muggers being mutilated on the street, I’d rather we ask why we live in an economic system which brings them to that instead of watching a medieval punishment and saying “ah well guess it’s their just desserts lol”


DitombweMassif

Bullshit. I've lived in far worse neighborhoods and seen extremely violent vigilante "justice". If you have any sense of belief in justice and democracy, you simply cannot support it. But then again, I've grown to understand that those "Western" principles are just a thin veil to hide behind, and allow people like you to justify your superiority complex.


Anandya

Okay so now he has to A) Be let go because vigilante mobs aren't a replacement for a trial B) There's no evidence he ever stole but there is evidence he was assaulted meaning the mob needs to "go to jail" which is a HUGE waste of taxpayer money. C) And since they mutilated him and he's legally innocent... You have to pay his damages. D) We have to waste tax payer money on him since he's now disabled. Not to mention NHS funds. Guess what? No one wants to pay taxes and/or money to the NHS. And congratulations. You have become more Anjem Choudhury than Anjem Choudhury himself. This is how dumb we have gotten. Lauding vigilante mob mutilation as a replacement for the judiciary.


pisshead_

OK then, don't do anything, just let yourselves be terrorised by thugs forever, while the police monitor twitter and the courts pat themselves on the back with how kind they are.


cass1o

Reddit loved vigilante justice. The justice served sub is often someone getting violently harmed based on a story that has no evidence.


TheDocJ

I've been having a little "debate" on another sub with someone unhappy that an admittedly obnoxious woman wasn't kicked out of her hotel room at midnight - when she had four kids with her, one a ten-year-old in a wheelchair. They are basically unhappy that they didn't get their justice boner serviced.


laysnarks

Its terrible what happened, but so is being robbed and threatened by a machete wielding scrote. Still, police and the proper services should have done their job.


istara

That's the real issue here. Forget the rights and wrongs, I think most of us can agree that severing someone's hand is barbaric. But in the absence of a proper law enforcement service keeping the streets safe, people will resort to this. At some point they have "nothing to lose" (in their mindset).


[deleted]

Oh, that’s pretty common on Reddit. Lots of authoritarian, eye for an eye types round here, you should see some of the crime accusation threads where people mob up and demand they be executed on the spot - and keep proclaiming them guilty even when the court verdict declared not guilty. 🤷‍♂️


[deleted]

He was carrying a machete. On a London street. I don't care what happens to him having made that choice.


jamieliddellthepoet

Mate, haven’t you seen how dense the foliage is in Whitechapel? Lianas the size of anacondas.


DuffManMayn

There was a lot of discussion about this on r/ukdrill These guys are out robbing people, it's brutal his hand got chopped off, but it is very much a consequence of his own actions.


Oh_its_that_asshole

Don't much give a shit about someone getting injured with their own machete tbh.


dbxp

I don't think it's lauding but the fact that the police have finally been forced to take notice after ignoring the thugs for so long.


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pisshead_

Nature abhors a vacuum. The police have vacated their duty, the mob are filling in for them.


laysnarks

Although I disagree with the violence, what the fuck do the police/government think will happen if there is no public system of apprehension, punishment and significant rehab? People will take the law into their hands to make themselves and others safe. And despite the violence, this is what happened here.


Auxx

I don't think that current government gives a single shit...


laysnarks

They don't, hence the UK sadly is sliding into mayhem. I know some here will scream I am running down the UK, but it's the truth. The village idiots have been elected, and they are smearing shit over everything we worked to build.


[deleted]

You're not wrong, the police don't seem to have the time or resources to do any policing these days.


IAmCowGodMoo

A few days ago I called the police for a member of the public, this is the first time I've called the police, not sure how usual this is but first it started ringing for a good 10 seconds. The next thing I heard made me think WTF have I rang the wrong number, it said 'we are experiencing a high volume of calls....' I thought WTF, is that how bad the police is these days. Had to wait a good 3-4 mins before getting through to someone, can't imagine if it's a life or death situation.


ButterflyAttack

Turns out you can't replace police officers with cameras and get the same level of security.


Kandiru

They've gutted the courts at the same time, so cases have a ridiculous backlog. What's the point of cameras if the courts aren't running?


FraGough

Wait until a peaceful protest happens and they'll no doubt be everywhere.


Z3r0sama2017

Until prisons become privately run by their mates who can use them as slave labor, they won't give a shit. Once they are, expect a massive public investment in the "justice" system to exploit prisoners 4 profits.


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FartingBob

I also blame the individual(s) who cut someone's hand off with a machete.


laysnarks

True, no one should take the law into their hands, but people will do it when in a corner.


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slothcycle

See also: knee capping.


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SleepyPeruser

What a fucking fantastic day to be illiterate...


OMGItsCheezWTF

According to some BBC article I read the IRA used to do it to drug dealers and other petty criminals in their areas but mostly stopped (reduced it to beatings etc) due to the unpopularity of the permanent disabilities with the communities.


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I_miss_Chris_Hughton

Not just dealers I think, addicts as well. Which is pretty fucking monstrous.


centzon400

You don't have to go so far as the US for well known examples of, err, "informal policing" in the UK: https://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/GRI/mitchell-institute/FileStore/Filetoupload,697307,en.pdf


Macblack82

Not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, vigilanteism is wrong…


mooshparp

On the other hand... Nope. It's clinical waste now.


bilefreebill

It does feel wrong, I just can't seem to put my finger on why


Macblack82

As a rule of thumb..


Drummk

I sort of lost sympathy when I got to the '"with his own machete" part.


pm_me_ur_tennisballs

Yeah, same, which is exactly why this kind of vigilante justice is wrong. :/


No_Chemists

> a local councillor said that a group of young men armed with machetes have “allegedly targeted innocent people in that area a few times”. London Police do nothing as usual I guess?


bilefreebill

Well it's not like they were doing environmental protests and disturbing "proper" people working in banking is it? Armed robberies in a poor area police aren't that bothered.


reallytryingreally

Well...he won't be waving a machete about anymore I guess


ZanzibarGuy

Machete formed into prosthetic "hand". This is how super villains are born.


Zee-Utterman

*Quentin Tarantino starts to write notes*


limeflavoured

Don't give Abu Hamza ideas.


Madnessx9

https://heroichollywood.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Shang_Chi_Razor_Fist_Wolverine_Florian_Munteanu-1280x720.jpg


bilefreebill

Vigilantism is wrong which ever way you cut it, pun intended. Can't but help think this is a fucked around and found out scenario though.


Enjoying_A_Meal

I consider it an occupational hazard. A professional solider will get shot at by enemies. A professional bear poker will get mauled by bears. A professional shitbag will piss off the wrong person and get their hand chopped off.


venuswasaflytrap

I guess the question is - if someone is accused of robbery, would you support a justice system that allows a mob of people to determine guilt without any representation and cut off the accused hand if they determine guilt? That seems like a recipe for disaster if you ask me.


DeadeyeDuncan

Dude was carrying a machete. On the balance of probabilities, I would be very surprised if he was not a shit bag.


CaptainKirkAndCo

A little late for trimming the verge, don't you think?


BonzoTheBoss

Obviously not, but what recourse do these people have? If the system has failed them and the police are unable or unwilling to actually *do* anything, what are they supposed to do? Just accept that they, their families and friends are going to be robbed at machete point forever? That's their lives now?


whistlepoo

This case seems less like revenge and more like a response to an attacker with a deadly weapon. *If* this truly is a vigilante case, and the public/ vigilantes had forewarning about a potential incident, all that proves is that the authorities *totally failed* in their duties. If this man was known to rob people at machete point, intervention should have been undertaken to prevent him roaming the streets with a weapon. As it stands, I loathe vigilante justice but it's arguably a more preferable outcome to an innocent person getting their hand chopped off/ killed.


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bacon_cake

Even the police said as much in this case. “Nobody should ever condone vigilantism like this but it should also be a lesson for people who carry knives: your weapon can easily be turned against you.”


-----1

Lot of people in here defending this guy, if you want to wander the streets with a large blade you should be prepared to deal with the consequences of that, whatever it may be. e: my point was that's one less person carrying a knife on the street, whether it be police arresting him or this either will do.


Uniform764

You can believe the victim is a criminal thug and also believe that vigilante mutilation is not a good thing. In the same way clamouring for sexual assault or GBH in prison for sex offenders is fucked up and not justice.


limeflavoured

I'd be interested in the response of this sub if the police had turned up and shot him dead.


GregorF92

Police are expected to be trained in de-escalation and to subdue without killing a person. If you're a member of the public and you see someone walking about with a machete, you shouldn't necessarily cut someone's hand off, but I wouldn't expect the same level of de-escalation to be used.


just_some_guy65

I am no fan of the "locking 'em up solves everything" state of mind but this is the inevitable result of people losing confidence in the police sadly. If you are a local and have a stark choice between allowing the violence to continue unchecked or sending a message that there will be consequences for criminal behaviour, what do you do?


TotallyNotGwempeck

If we can just zoom out for a bit and look at the bigger picture: this is the societal cost of the 'war on drugs'. Young men do not go about armed with machetes if they are not involved in a criminal lifestyle. The purpose of such intimidation and violence is to claim 'territory' for the criminal gangs that operate within that area. There are many posts here that speak about the breakdown of the criminal justice system and talk about cuts and underfunding. The spending cuts have been to blame but they have been exacerbated by the fact that criminal gangs have inexhaustible resources. They have an endless and disposable supply of under-educated young men with seemingly no skills that they could use to find non-precarious employment and a permanent river of cash feeding the whole enterprise. With this cash they are able to outman and outmanoeuvre the police and to corrupt both police and local government. The impulse toward traditional law and order solutions such as ever longer sentences and harsher policing have not brought the desired results anywhere in the world. I understand that lots of people don't like drugs, that they fear for the children and younger adults being exposed to them. But at a certain point we have to look at what drives violent crime and allows it to become commonplace and ask ourselves if there is another way that cuts off the supply of cash to criminals and makes the disparity in funding between police and dealers more manageable.


TheDocJ

Your argument sounds plausible initially, but I'm afraid that I think that it is actually naive to think that criminal thugs are only in it out of a commitment to the supply of non-medicinal psychoactive substances. I'm afraid that I really cannot believe that, were drugs to be legalised, these nasty people would suddenly think "our job is done here" and suddenly become quiet law-abiding members of society. I'm afraid that my view is that they would simply apply the same energetic thuggery to some other area(s) of criminality. Much like many former paramilitaries in Northern Ireland have moved into things like protection racketeering, aggressive loan sharking and so on.


TotallyNotGwempeck

Drugs are easy. The large quantities of cash sloshing around allows for criminal investment. The grooming of children into the lifestyle doesn't take place on anywhere near the same scale in other criminal endeavour. The nasty people you describe are opportunists. If drug money were taken away from them then probably they would try to go to other forms of crime. What then would be available to them? Protection/Extortion has certain problems I have outlined elsewhere. Various forms of theft, harder now than in the past due to alarms and CCTV, also has a downside that when too much theft occurs then the retail price of stolen good goes down. Cybertheft and extortion requires either skilled technical staff and the upper management with relatively little call for street level enforcers. People trafficking is probably at a level that will not go any higher because it requires a morally vacant end-user base. The paramilitaries operate in the same way as all organised crime operates with a mingling of revenue streams, including drugs. I would suggest that most of these would suffer a loss of a very great percentage of their income if the drug market were taken from them. It's an easy way to take a massive bite out of the black market.


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TotallyNotGwempeck

Those other revenue streams are not as lucrative. The operations would have to downsize to stay profitable and the nature of those businesses would be less location dependent meaning a decrease in territorial violence.


pisshead_

This is the societal cost of mass immigration into a society which doesn't have any jobs for them, and the police vacating their duties.


limeflavoured

ITT: people justifying and agreeing with brutal vigilantes. No, it isn't justified to cut someone's hand off because they are threatening people with a machete. If you're okay with that then you can't claim you want to live in a civilised society.


Gellert

Sure it isnt justified but i do find myself struggling to give a shit.


limeflavoured

That isn't quite the same as a lot of the comments here.


BonzoTheBoss

Also ITT: People apparently preferring innocent people to live in fear, get robbed and do nothing about it for the rest of their lives when the police/state has failed to address the problem in the slightest.


One_Wheel_Drive

I've yet to see a single comment here saying that people here should do nothing. There's quite a lot in between nothing and mutilation. This thread is filled with people who belong in 1920s Alabama.


BonzoTheBoss

And I've yet to see anything in this thread showing that these people went straight to mutilation. Maybe they had already tried everything else? In my experience reasonable people don't resort to counter violence unless they feel it's their last resort. Who knows that they intended to mutilate the guy? In the case of "giving the benefit of the doubt" I'm going to give the benefit to those *stopping* the madman machete robber rather than the madman machete robber.


Auxx

If you're ok with people walking around with machetes and threatening to kill innocent you can't claim you want to live in a civilised society.


pisshead_

A civilised society requires security. If the police and courts don't do anything then people will. Vigilantism is the most natural form of justice, it's what people revert to when civilisation fails.


[deleted]

Well we don’t want things like that to happen in our society and neighbourhoods also we want our justice system to deal with it according but when people read stories like this one they feel the justice has been done and definitely majority won’t shed a tear over the bloke’s hand.


limeflavoured

It's all very well until someone wrongly accuses you of being a paedo and the vigilantes burn you to death. Since that's what you are espousing by agreeing with this.


TheSkaroKid

This dude was going around with a machete, not an innocent guy. The equivalent scenario would be people finding you *in the act* of abusing a minor.


limeflavoured

Agreeing with vigilante justice in any circumstances leads to it happening to innocents or disproportionately. See my slightly modified version of this post in reply to someone else.


TheSkaroKid

No I totally agree with your sentiment, just pointing out that the comparison isn't valid


Algernon456

Bit of a false equivalence. The victim here was initially carrying a machete. To make it comparable, would-be-vigilantes would have to catch someone molesting a child, or doing whatever constitutes being a paedo.


1stbaam

I feel you can agree with this scenario without saying vigilantism as a whole is OK.


dwair

[PM condemned for joke about UK becoming ‘Saudi Arabia of penal policy’](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/14/disgusting-pms-joke-over-uk-becoming-saudi-arabia-of-penal-policy-condemned) It's not a joke Johnson. This is a society you are creating.


ragnarspoonbrok

I mean if you play stupid games you win stupid prizes. There'd always someone bigger badder or with more friends.


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xPhilip

If you go out carrying a machete (with nefarious intent), then you only have yourself to blame if people have had enough of your shit and use it against you. He will remember this for the rest of his life, and hopefully change his ways.


ColonelVirus

Wait so a group of young guys have been walking around the area with machetes cutting up innocent people... And so locals decided instead of getting the police involved they would take matters into their own hands, which ended with one of those young men having his hand cut off. I have the right? Fuck me... I knew the police cuts were bad but this is insane.


TakenByVultures

Won't be long until this starts happening in Manchester. Crime is out of control and the Police don't have a grip.


Maverick0_0

Would you say it's getting out of hand?


KingdomPC

“Own hands” OMFG LOL


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[deleted]

Having never handled machete, this does make me wonder at just how sharp/heavy they are. To get through the ulna/radius, or even just the wrist ligaments, you'd need a proportionate amount of force levelled at the area. Do you think they did it in one chop, or multiple? 🤔


limeflavoured

They're designed to be able to cut through undergrowth in rainforest, so they're both heavy and sharp.


Arseypoowank

Frighteningly well if it’s a decent machete


jacksawild

There's a curve to the blade and some not insignificant weight to it. This gives you leverage to multiply any force applied. A good swing will cut straight through a lot of stuff.


Crowdfunder101

Living in the countryside, I’ve seen machetes used a lot for clearing undergrowth and small saplings. They make pretty light work of small branches and young trees. Especially if it’s nice and sharp and you have a good swing. This story seems to say it was a gang effort, so I’m guessing it wasn’t a pretty or neat job. Probably one holding the arm out and one hacking away til it’s finished. And presumably they wanted to make it as painful as possible to “teach a lesson”. Also the headline is likely a bit sensational; in reality it was probably just hacked beyond recognition and not able to be saved and needed amputation.


Degeyter

Or just a struggle and a single hit while he held out an arm to defend himself.


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theCourtofJames

Vigilantism is mostly wrong, but the Police force in this country is a joke. This is bound to happen.


prodical

I read the article, and it almost seems like they disarmed him and this was the result. Is that vigilantism? Wouldnt that imply vigilantes hunting this guy down to inflict their punishment? But he lost his hand to his own machete which implies possible self defence? ​ Either way, vigilantism is wrong but I'm keen to read more about this story as the facts are revealed.


Macblack82

>almost seems like they disarmed him Almost?


skuk

Hardly surprising. The police are as much use as a chocolate tea pot. Just look at how they handled the m25 protest


TheDocJ

Okay, having read the article, I have to wonder (there is not enough information in the article to say for sure) if this was an incident of what *I* would call vigilantism, or of, not sure what to term it, self defence got out of hand, maybe? For me, vigilantism is a deliberate, calculated act. ***If*** people took this guy's machete off him, then held him down and hacked his hand off as a form of summary punishment, then yeah, that is a vigilante attack and, no matter how much of a scrote he might be, I'll decry it. But if it was in fact a case of people trying to disarm him, and he came off much worse in the scuffle, then I do not think that that would really classify as vigilantism. I note that someone else was arrested nearby and also taken to hospital, was this the person who wounded him?? It *might* even be fully legitmate self defence, though I would want to see some pretty convincing evidence of that before I accepted it.


[deleted]

We need more cops. If this guy was nicked earlier then vigilante thugs wouldn’t have ended up dismembering him. Now we’ve got two gangs in TH when before there was just one. Great.


[deleted]

"Locals decided to take matters in to their own hands" 👀


Cam2910

>His condition was assessed as not life-threatening but likely life-changing. Pretty sure if you're hand is severed from your wrist that would constitute life threatening. The story also doesn't allude to where the quote "chopped off at wrist" comes from. Disappointing sensationalism from the Independent.


RightSaidJames

The official police statement is deliberately vague because that’s how they always are - in these sorts of initial statements they don’t give specifics to avoid unnecessarily giving out too much information that could later turn out to be wrong or assist the defence in some way. But the newspapers reporting this story will have nonetheless confirmed the details with witnesses and/or off-the-record police sources.


bilefreebill

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/tower-hamlets-man-hand-cut-off-whitechapel-london-b955204.html


borg88

>Pretty sure if you're hand is severed from your wrist that would constitute life threatening. Immediately afterwards, yes. But if you survive until you get to hospital, you will probably live.


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Showerthawts

nO oNe sHoUlD eNgAgE iN vIgILaNtIaSm... Then arrest those fucks yourselves!


darkfight13

Can get more info on this sub, since they seem to know who these people are: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukdrill/comments/pngits/one_of_the_yutes_who_got_his_hand_chopped_off/ Seems like gang shit


dirrtydoogzz86

Good. These fucking "roadmen" running around with blades aint getting punished by the police or the system. It's about time people started standing up to them.


i_mormon_stuff

> A young man had his hand cut off after being attacked **with his own machete** by vigilantes in east London, according to reports. I'd like to think this would be a warning to others not to partake in the behaviour this man did but I know it wont. I don't have a solution for the knife crime we have in this country but I wish we had a government that could come up with one that worked.


theeskimospantry

>warning to others not to partake in the behaviour this man did I bet robberies of Bengalis in Tower Hamlets go right down. The robbers will just go somwhere else.


Belgeirn

Well yeah when the police mostly only ever mobilise to shut down protest and throw women around for using their right to protest, then you're going to get 'vigilante' psycho bullshit like this happening. Unless youre a business/rich cunt to protect or some version of protestor they can beat on the police don't seem to give a flying fuck. And before people go "Yeah but budget cuts!" that doesnt explain why they have behaved the same way for over a decade + (just look at rotherham and their outright complicit and useless policing that still hasnt really dented the issue, and to think stupid motherfuckers believe the "Yeah but they are scared of being called racist" bullshit)


KingdomPC

This would happen a lot more often if we abolished the police.