‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#91

Post by mixmastamyk » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

scarejunba wrote: post #82

raspie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For more than two decades, McElroy was suspected of being involved in theft of grain, gasoline, alcohol, antiques, and livestock, but he avoided conviction when charges were brought against him 21 times—often after witnesses refused to testify because he allegedly intimidated them, frequently by following his targets or parking outside their homes and watching them. > McElroy began stalking the Bowenkamp family, an…

Oh, I don’t think he’s innocent, but all information about this is post facto. All those sources exist after he was killed. I’m less conspiracy theory about this, and more just remarking (pointlessly, I suppose) how information deteriorates over time. Some may even be true, but used as a tool to build the rest around.

His criminal record should clear up doubt.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#92

Post by kazinator » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #91

scarejunba wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I don’t think he’s innocent, but all information about this is post facto. All those sources exist after he was killed. I’m less conspiracy theory about this, and more just remarking (pointlessly, I suppose) how information deteriorates over time. Some may even be true, but used as a tool to build the rest around.

His criminal record should clear up doubt.

But the town police colluded with the vigilantes!

How can it be certain that the record isn't a post hoc fabrication. Or if not entirely, then at least embellished.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#93

Post by bediger4000 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #70

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 Mid…

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.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#94

Post by rolltiide » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

mieseratte wrote: post #69

danielg6 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Neither of you were wrong” So you also think the original comment was “helplessly racist” lol?

Well, the original comment seems to imply that the only reason people care about TFA is because the man was white and allegedly did something which is, at best, needlessly provocative, some might say race-baiting. One could have trivially found another way to bring up the history of lynching as relates to this instance of mob "justice."

This accurately describes what I observed

This is more in line with currently existing high crime areas where nobody talks to the police as part of the culture. The demographics of this reality have no commonality with lynching statistics.

Its more closely related to anti snitching culture than us debating novelty of white people being lynched.

It is a total red herring to what this story even brings to the table.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#95

Post by raquo » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

scarejunba wrote: post #82

raspie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For more than two decades, McElroy was suspected of being involved in theft of grain, gasoline, alcohol, antiques, and livestock, but he avoided conviction when charges were brought against him 21 times—often after witnesses refused to testify because he allegedly intimidated them, frequently by following his targets or parking outside their homes and watching them. > McElroy began stalking the Bowenkamp family, an…

Oh, I don’t think he’s innocent, but all information about this is post facto. All those sources exist after he was killed. I’m less conspiracy theory about this, and more just remarking (pointlessly, I suppose) how information deteriorates over time. Some may even be true, but used as a tool to build the rest around.

He was convicted of attempted murder while he was very well alive. He was also charged for many other crimes for two decades, the charges just never stuck because he intimidated the witnesses. Plenty of information about his deeds was recorded prior to his killing.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#96

Post by kemiller2002 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

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.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#97

Post by habitue » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #89

leetcrew wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Rule of law is essentially about process for resolving disputes. In this case, it doesn't seem to be any dispute - it seems that the community had came to a consensus (almost unanimous if we discount McElroy himself and his wife Trena) about what how they wanted things to be.

Rule of law is not only about the practice of resolving disputes, though that's important, it's also about the belief that the process is what is used to handle criminals like McElroy. If that belief is shaken, it's much more damaging than if the system itself is a bit inefficient or corrupt but people still believe in it.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#98

Post by bediger4000 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

neaden wrote: post #2

To be clear, community murders like this happened all the time in US history. The thing that makes this special is that the man killed was white and actually guilty of crimes.

The thing that makes this different is that the US government has kept better track of its citizens since about 1955. Despite our fear of the Mark of The Beast, we track (effectively) everybody via Social Security Number. I don't think this was true until on into the 1970s.

I'm sure that this kind of thing went on all the time in the US, in smaller towns and rural areas. People disappeared all the time. Probably most of them moved to the big city or California, but a bunch probably ended up in unmarked graves. A friend of mine had a grandmother who lived in Milwaukee. She was Jewish. She fell in love with the Polish butcher. They disappeared from Milwaukee. A couple of months later, they were in Denver, married, and she was now Catholic. The special thing about my friend's grandmother, is that he knows the story. The bitter thing about that story is that it can't happen today, because we all are tracked. There are good reasons, but that doesn't mean that giving up segmentation of risks is all that great.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#99

Post by vkou » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

AndrewBissell wrote: post #49

vkou wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lynching has always been driven by people reacting to what they believe was a credible threat, that law enforcement has failed to protect them from. In the historic case, that 'credible threat' was 'race mixing', uppity ______s, jews that were too well off for their own good, etc. When you let the most violent members of a small town community unilaterally decide what is, and what is not a credible threat, that is ex…

Are you comparing a townspeople who faced daily threats of actual violence from a pedophile bully, and who watched him routinely evade justice in the courts, to lynch mobs who executed random people of a certain skin color for looking at someone's daughter the wrong way? "Credible threat" has an actual meaning beyond just "whatever people think a 'credible threat' is".

It was credible enough to them that they would kill another human being over it.

The whole point of a lynch mob is that you get to throw out any objective standard of credible threat, and replace it with a subjective, heat-of-the-moment one, proposed by the thugs leading it, who know they will face no accountability for their actions.

That's what happens when you normalize lynching. Shitty people will happily use it as a weapon for injustice.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#100

Post by everdev » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

tomc1985 wrote: post #74

dwheeler wrote: post #10

> 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 generatio…

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.

> if the justice system cannot help you then you have to take things into your own hands

Fortunately not many people seem to feel this way, maybe because revenge doesn't work as a criminal defense.

People who have been wronged are usually highly emotional and it's hard for them to put themselves outside of their circumstances and view the incident objectively.

Justice is supposed to be blind for good reason. If we all carried out our own version of justice, I'm sure you'd eventually run into someone who thought being too loud at night should be punishable by death.

There are many instances where victims of bullying feel they have no recourse other than revenge. I don't know the answer for how to make that situation better, but I know it's not murder.