7 September, 1876

[oneshooter]

1876 – In Northfield, Minnesota, Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang attempt to rob the town’s bank but are surrounded by an angry mob and are nearly killed. These citizens took the law into their own hands. Should they have waited for professional law enforcement intervention?

Yes or no and why

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Hell Yeah!

Love that vigilante justice, mob violence, and shootouts on Main Street! THAT'S what we've been missing since the end of the Old West.

[Callisto32]

3. The police have no duty to protect you.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=no+duty+to+protect

Remember that when you try to take away people's ability to defend themselves.

[one-eyed fat man]

4. Holly wood is still.......well, North Hollywood

1997 North Hollywood shoot-out

You like how well these professional law enforcement officers did against two pretty determined robbers? North Hollywood. Took hundreds of policemen, dozens of squad cars, and a sack full of helicopters 44 minutes to 'stop' those two. One crook killed himself when he ran out of ammo while the other bled out because medical attention was a 'little slow' getting there.

Seems to me the good citizens of Northfield, Minnesota and Coffeyville, Kansas did a far more professional job. They ended the criminal careers of the James-Younger and the Dalton gangs in a third the time it took 300 California cops to stop two bank robbers a hundred years later.

[SteveM]

6. Any links to the frequency of these events? Links? Data? No?

Actually, the near break-up of the "James Gang" was caused by these town folks and farmers who had quite enough of this romanticized para-military gang activity. But maybe you can point to viable alternatives which could have been taken by the citizens of this little town.

We'll wait.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. ???

I did say 'That's what's missing'. It doesn't happen anymore, BECAUSE we have professional police.

I don't know WTF you are talking about.

[shadowrider]

10. Difference is, professional police of today are under no obligation to protect you.

Sometimes you have to protect yourself, much like these townspeople did.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the question.

They were not 'protecting themselves'. They were joining in combat with a terrorist gang that was out to rob the bank - not attack the citizens. They were, in fact, endangering themselves.

BTW, police ARE under obligation to protect the citizens, if it is in their capability to do so. They simply cannot be held accountable or liable for failing to do so. You never heard of "To Protect And Serve"? Again, that has nothing to do with this.

And if you haven't noticed, this is the 21st century, not the mid-19th century. The frontier went away a long, long time before either of our grandparents were born.

[shadowrider]

19. "To protect and serve" is simply a slogan n/t

[Glassunion]

21. What?

How does that work?
"BTW, police ARE under obligation to protect the citizens, if it is in their capability to do so. They simply cannot be held accountable or liable for failing to do so. You never heard of "To Protect And Serve"? Again, that has nothing to do with this."

How can they be under an obligation to protect the citizens, yet they cannot be held accountable or liable for failing to do so?

Sort of cancels each other out.

[PavePusher]

23. In many locations, police assistance is still a very long distance away.

What do you propose people do? Heck, what should they do if the police are in close proximity, but do not render help? What. Does. One. Do?

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. One lives a good life, and does not worry about things that have not

happened.

Que sera, sera.

There is no such thing as 'safe'.

[PavePusher]

27. Wow.

You'll be giving up your health insurance then, amIright?

[Callisto32]

26. If there is obligation, there are consequences for failure.

That is kind of what obligated means.

[Ready4Change]

28. At the time, a towns bank was essential for the towns livelyhood.

It wasn't just 'bankers money' in there, and there wasn't federal insurance. When robbers hit a bank back then it wiped peoples personal assets. It could kill a whole town. So the people in those towns had a strong interest in keeping their towns bank intact. They recognized that groups like the James gang weren't being Robin Hoods. They weren't robbing the rich and giving it to the poor. They were robbing all the townsfolk at once, and giving it to themselves.

And law enforcement at the time was sketchy and unreliable. Many towns didn't have police. Many didn't have a Sheriff. Often trials had to wait until a traveling judge dropped by. With that near total lack of support, small wonder people would take action themselves.

Today? Most peoples accounts are covered by federal insurance. Police often don't react in time, but when they do they don't act to protect your money. They act to protect the bank itself. (Ie: it's shareholders.)

I think MOST of the reason you don't see James style bank robbing gangs any more is that banks are generally harder targets. Better vaults, better workstation armoring, video monitoring, silent alarms, and internal processes that generally leave smaller amounts of cash in the tills than a street criminal might get from robbing a decent sized grocery stores registers. In other words, banks today are high risk targets with little reward.

(Unless you are an especially savvy thief, but that's the stuff for heist movies.)

[SteveM]

12. "Hell yeah" suggests a desire to return to that era by some...

I only asked whether you read about a lot of incidents; you know, to see if it was worth returning to. In any case, I don't know of anyone who wants to get back to the Wild West, Inc., esp. since it is mainly a MSM/entertainment creation.

[one-eyed fat man]

2. History repeats..................

The Dalton Gang's Last Raid

Around 9:30 the morning of October 5, 1892 five members of the Dalton Gang (Grat Dalton, Emmett Dalton, Bob Dalton, Bill Power and Dick Broadwell) rode into the small town of Coffeyville, Kansas. To disguise their identity, (Coffeyville was the Dalton's hometown) two of the Daltons wore false beards and wigs.

Someone on the street shouted, "The bank is being robbed!" and the citizens quickly armed themselves - taking up firing positions around the banks. Fifteen minutes later Bill Power, Bob Dalton, Grat Dalton and Dick Broadwell quit robbing banks for a living.

[RSillsbee]

5. I don't know for sure

I did some research and I found that the criminals killed two townspeople and the townspeople killed two criminals so I’d call that a wash. Jesse James was actually pretty brutal so I can’t guarantee that he wouldn’t have killed someone gratuitously so that’s probably a point in favor of intervention. The townspeople were, apparently, military veterans so I assume they knew their business.

I guess I want to know if there was an avenue to make good the depositor’s losses at the time. If so, it’s just money. If not I’d be a little more inclined to fight.


In the end I honestly can't answer.
Sorry

[oneshooter]

14. Well there was no FDIC around at the time, most all transactions were cash

The bank was responsible for the protection of your money. If they could not recover it then they went out of business. If the people and businesses lost the money then they could not pay the bills, or the employees, or the creditors.
The people were defending THEIR money, their property, their businesses. Most were veterans of Mr Lincolns War, were armed, and knew how to use those arms.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[SteveM]

7. You may wish to look a little more closely at the term "vigilante..."

"A vigilante is someone who illegally punishes someone for actual or perceived offenses, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to such a person." (From Wiki.)

Using this definition of "vigilante," it does not appear the townspeople meted out illegal punishment for actual or perceived offenses, or meted out extralegal punishment. In fact, the townspeople attempted to stop a crime in progress.

Things are a lot different in the real West.

edit: mistakenly posted under OP; should have been for the "usual suspect."

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. Were these people deputized? No? That makes them extra-legal.

The OPs original post describes them as an "angry mob" - a very inaccurate description, actually. The James and Dalton 'boys' were embittered unrehabilitated ex-confederate terrorists who, trained to their profession by Quantril, would not stop fighting. It's safe to say the the citizens who fought them in Northfield MN were Union vets facing an armed enemy, not a 'mob' with pitchforks and torches.

This has as much to do with today as ... well, nothing. It predated the era of professional police forces, and was the last gasp of the revolutionary concept of the militia. And that's what it was, a local citizen militia battling it out with an ex-confederate militia. Like fucking Afghanistan. Haven't we moved beyond that?

[SteveM]

11. The definition I read has to do with meting out extra punishment...

When a group acts in self-defense or to stop a crime in action, it is not meting out anything extra or unusual when the adversary is an armed group of para-military terrorists committing a violent crime. Would one armed citizen trying to stop a violent crime be considered a vigilante? Would a dozen? Vigilantes are individuals/groups who, well after the crime or what they think is a crime, take it upon themselves to "add on" extra punishment to further some notion of "justice." If a group is deputized and does this, they have taken on the mantle(sp) of a vigilante, just as a group who is not deputized. I see nothing about this incident which qualifies the townspeople as vigilantes.

I would certainly hope that we have moved beyond "local citizen militia battling it out" with anyone. Frankly, I see very little evidence of that at the present in the U.S. (though there is evidence of vigilante/terrorist activity by racist groups and the Klan in the South during the 1950s).

[one-eyed fat man]

13. The James boys were preacher's kids too!

They have quite a history here in Kentucky. When they were quite young and the family had fallen on hard times a Russelville banker's charity got them through the winter. Gratitude ran thin, for on March 20, 1868, The James Gang held up this bank in Russellville, Kentucky. The entire amount they got away with was $17,000 with $5,000 of the loot being bank notes and the rest in gold coins. The banker, Nimrod Long was beaten and shot; however, he did not let the James Gang get ahead too quickly before he sounded the alarm.



Frank and Jesse James were frequent guests in the Old Talbott Tavern, in Bardstown, Kentucky. They had relatives in the area, their mother went to school nearby and their cousin was the wife of the county jailer. On one occasion it is said that Jesse was so inebriated that he thought birds depicted in murals on his guest room wall had come to life, he then proceeded to shoot at them with his revolver. Today, those bullets hole remain although the guestroom has not been used since a fire in 1998. One of Frank's pistols is on display at distillery run by the descendants of one of their friends.



The James' Gang as well as John Hunt Morgan were known to have used this cave in Meade county, now part of the present day Otter Creek Park, as a hideout.

[oneshooter]

15. It predated the era of professional police forces

Many small towns do not have a " professional police force" less than 30-45 minutes away. They have small branch banks and/or a local State Chartered Bank. So according to you the citizens should do nothing?

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. And those towns are plagued by gangs of ex-confederates riding in

and shooting and whooping and hollerin - Oh, sorry, that was from Blazing Saddles.

Join the 21st century.

[PavePusher]

22. What should a Citizen do when the police are too far away...

to be of timely assistance?

Or will you tap-dance the question again?

[one-eyed fat man]

29. 21st century and rustling is still a thriving enterprise

Now they pull up with a stolen cattle trailer, pulled by a stolen truck and back up to your pasture and fill it with your bred heifers. Ear tags get ripped out. Microchips are usually cut out. Old-fashioned branding still works the best. The livestock marketing association publishes bulletins like this to alert buyers:

Strayed, Missing or Stolen Livestock — Kentucky — 2/9/2009
LBT has learned of 30 head missing from Williamsburg, Kentucky, since about 1 am this morning, February 9, 2009. They were mostly black cows and bred heifers with mostly yellow tags with “Gelbvieh” and some blue ear tags, see below. There were 4 steers, one brown & white spotted, 700 pounds; one grey steer, 800 pounds; one golden steer, 800 pounds; one black steer, 6-700 pounds and another black heifer with no tag. If you have any information, please contact Clarence Rice at 606/549-4616 or 606/521-8767 cell.
yellow tag #24 - black cow with new calf
yellow tags #24t, #21t, 217t, 219t, #9 - black bred heifers
yellow tags #21, 217, 219, 205, 13, 4 - black cows
yellow tag #12 - small black heifer
blue tags #93, 98 - black cows

The steers are worth what they fetch in steaks. The bred heifers and the calf crop are the real money. For a small family farm to lose 30 head is a catastrophe. It still happens and modern (read that as 'citified')law enforcement is ill-prepared to to deal with it and doesn't take it seriously. Too many folks who have never lived past where the blacktop ends who are clueless about life off the grid.

[oneshooter]

30. Texas law still allows you to shoot rustlers and fence cutters

graveyard dead where they stand.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[one-eyed fat man]

32. and Oregon

wasn't always full of tofu eating, hairy-legged women in Birkenstocks. This is how they dealt with horse thieves in 1900.

[PavePusher]

18. "government by, of and for the people" is all the deputization they needed.

And they were most definitely protecting their property, community and livelyhoods.

I don't think we need to "move beyond that" if "that" is what is required at the time.

[shadowrider]

20. C'mon dude. Don't you know we're supposed to apply todays morals and standards

to acts committed years and centuries ago to determine guilt or innocence of those long ago acts?

[X_Digger]

25. Stopping a crime in progress is extra-legal? Funny, the law doesn't think so, even today. n/t

[Hoopla Phil]

31. I'm reminded of the Rodney King riots and the shop owners.

When the law cannot, or will not do what needs to be done then the citizens must take up arms or bear their necks.