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

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

#201

Post by mcbits »

persistent wrote: post #151
jcims wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you sure this isn't just a bias of yours? Urban areas in the United States have a lower rate of fatal injuries due to violence than do rural areas. Perhaps this is not what you meant by "violent crime"? I know the output of these reports is difficult to interpret but see [1]. The top decile of per-capita violent deaths are rural counties, not urban ones. 1: https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/output/m588…

What is the definition of "violence" for that chart? Specifically, does it include self-inflicted violence (suicide) and vehicular homicide (drunk driving)? If so, it is much less surprising.

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

#202

Post by ryanpetrich »

parsnips wrote: post #200
hinkley wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'm hung up on the same thing, chief. Why per capita per square mile instead of per capita? Why do the miles enter into it? Because of more interactions? I'd like to see just the numbers per capita. I suspect they're fairly close.

Because violent felonies such as homicide proximity is the requisite factor in victimhood. ie The victim must be located near the killer. Given 1 homicide in 100k for 100sq miles called "rural" vs 1 homicide in 100k for 5 sq miles called "urban", your odds of being in proximity of a homicide are much higher in the urban area. 20 times more likely.

Being further away from killers that I'm equally likely to be victims of isn't any more comforting.

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

#203

Post by tptacek »

mcbits wrote: post #201
persistent wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure this isn't just a bias of yours? Urban areas in the United States have a lower rate of fatal injuries due to violence than do rural areas. Perhaps this is not what you meant by "violent crime"? I know the output of these reports is difficult to interpret but see [1]. The top decile of per-capita violent deaths are rural counties, not urban ones. 1: https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/output/m588…

What is the definition of "violence" for that chart? Specifically, does it include self-inflicted violence (suicide) and vehicular homicide (drunk driving)? If so, it is much less surprising.

From CDC: a violent death is defined as a death resulting from the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or a group or community

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

#204

Post by pavel_lishin »

bitwize wrote: post #120
tomc1985 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some states, like Texas, still have the "needed killin'" defense: if a person accused of murder can prove to the jury that the victim needed killin', the jury will not convict (or will convict on a lesser charge). You have to pass a high bar to need killin': generally the defense only works if the accused can show that while not in immediate danger of life and limb, they felt sufficiently credibly threatened by the v…

[citation needed]

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

#205

Post by duncan-donuts »

jcims wrote: post #197
its_the_future wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure socioeconomic status is not a better fit and that race is not just a proxy for it?

I’m not saying it’s specific races or some sneaky proxy for them, but the fact that there are different races at all likly plays some role. For example, I firmly believe if we had opposites millenia with regard to race these same patterns would emerge. Now I have lost track of the exact scope of ‘socioeconomic status’, but i don’t think that being poor/uneducated/financially insecure explains it all either. West Virg…

Idk, I’m kind of with you on this. I grew up in an area that was racially diverse and also shared a distrust of the police and legal system. Minorities in the United States are being shot and killed by police at an alarming rate. I’m not convinced that every urban community holistically decides they must take justice into their own hands, but I, anecdotally, grew up in a place where people do take matters into their own hands. Again, I’m not saying you’re onto something here, but I do know many people who would rather fight in the streets over fight in a court room.

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

#206

Post by pavel_lishin »

dmix wrote: post #198
ryanmarsh wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It probably just means the gypsies didn't want to go to the police over an assault when they were committing a robbery.

It probably means that the gypsies knew that they wouldn't get a fair shake regardless of facts, to be honest.

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

#207

Post by runako »

jacobolus wrote: post #194
AcerbicZero wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many more variables to correct for than just population density but this study does a pretty good job covering that and then some. In short, yes cities have significantly more crime (both violent and property) than rural areas. https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/86153/IJRC_Ward-eta... There are huge numbers of trends in the crime data depending on you want to look at it, so I'm always open to changing…

> The average number of residents age 14 - 17 for urban counties was 10,879.74 (SD = 25,923.60), far larger than the mean of 987.32 (SD = 760.86) for rural counties. Likewise, the average number of residents age 18 - 24 for urban counties (18,752.97, SD = 41,994.59) was much greater than rural counties (M = 1,625.68, SD = 1,417.78). If there are literally 10 times fewer young people, it’s not too surprising that the…

> the population of those places is on the verge of collapse.

That collapse has been underway for a couple of generations now.

>Has there just been a sharp demographic break within the last generation with all of the young people suddenly moving away, or are large numbers of 30-somethings moving from the city to rural towns?

Depending on how you count, young people have been leaving farms for 4 or 5 generations now. Part of this is down to the increased efficiency of agriculture, which means fewer people are needed to produce food, which means fewer agricultural jobs. Most job creation happens in cities now, so young people who are not inheriting a family business tend to move toward cities. Richard Florida and others have written extensively about this demographic shift.

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

#208

Post by maxden »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #96

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 h…

Maybe a little bit similar is the case of Paddy Moriarty missing from a small (10 ppl) Australian town.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-03/a-dog-act-homicide-on...

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

#209

Post by philwelch »

fortran77 wrote: post #131
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…

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. They stopped him…

I think I’ve heard stories of eg battered wives killing their husbands and then claiming self-defense because they reasonably feared for their lives (and perhaps their children’s lives) in the long run.

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

#210

Post by myrandomcomment »

wtdata wrote: post #161
LyndsySimon wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and if anything that supports my position. Minorities are statistically more likely to be both perpetrators and victims of violent crime. Members of those communities therefore are more likely than non-members to have a legitimate need to defend themselves.

But, gun ownership clearly correlates with gun related violence (i.e. violent crime). Less guns, less violent crime.

A number of stories on the front page of the BBC (UK) in the last week have been about the issues of the rise Knife violence. The band guns, and now there is an increase of murders via a knife. Bad people do not follow the law.
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