Two innocent men have been burned alive by a massive lynch mob after WhatsApp rumours branded them child abductors.
A large crowd gathered outside the police station after rumours spread about the two men.
A mob dragged two men out of a police station, savagely beat them and then set them on fire, killing them, after a false rumour was spread on WhatsApp about the pair being child kidnappers.
The mother of one of the men made a desperate plea for the crowd to stop as she watched the lynching unfold on a Facebook livestream.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-46145986
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @04:11PM (18 children)
A crowd in that state is like a pack of animals. There is nothing human working in their brains at that moment, they are pure animalistic instinct. The only way to break that behavior is to trigger another, more powerfull, animalistic instinct.
The police should have started shooting in the crowd. Then you would have seen the crowd's behavior change instantly from rabbid wolf pack to panic stampede of animals running for their lives in every direction. Much like bear bangers instantly break a bear's behavior from predatory to fleeing for its life.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Wednesday November 14 2018, @04:53PM (16 children)
Hopefully we're talking about rubber bullets, or beanbag shotguns, or something...otherwise killing people in the mob to save the innocent guy is kind of an ethical question. Cf. the trolley problem.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday November 14 2018, @05:42PM
I agree it should ideally be deterrents fired, at least to start.
However, I don't see how killing would-be murderers to save innocent men is in any way comparable to the trolley problem. Maybe some of them just showed up for a peaceful protest, but they chose to remain as things devolved into a violent mob. I don't see how joining a mob should absolve you of responsibility for your crimes any more than getting drunk should. *You* are still the one who willingly chose to compromise your good judgement. If you're not willing to own up to the results, don't do it in the first place.
Now perhaps some leniency is justified for the murderers after the fact, as most people have a lot less personal experience with mobs than with getting drunk, and may underestimate just how badly it can compromise their judgement. But that's after the fact, when there's nothing left to be done for the innocent.
As it is, I hope at the very least the guilty are all plagued by nightmares for years to come, and learn a lesson from being forced to confront the monster that dwells within them. Far too many people grossly underestimate their own capacity for evil.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @05:50PM
The Trolley Problem ceases to be a problem when the crowd you hit with the train was trying to murder the person you diverted the train from.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @06:14PM
Killing each and every concentration camp guard to save a single prisoner is permissible.
Killing each and every person on earth with one exception is permissible if they all are attempting to murder that one guy.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 14 2018, @06:52PM (3 children)
A few rounds of high-caliber or shotgun into the air can definitely make most of a crowd reconsider the urgency of their involvement in the matter at hand.
Past a certain size and anger level, it's better for the cops to step aside and let one guy get lynched instead triggering of a full battle. Under that threshold, the deafening crack of a rifle or 45/50-cal is impossible to ignore, though hard to use without causing a stampede in the other direction.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @06:58PM (2 children)
It's better that the murderous mob be gunned down no matter how numerous the perpetrators or how few the victims.
Rights are that which is defended beyond expected utility.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 14 2018, @08:18PM (1 child)
Cops are local people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @08:51PM
They accept the ire they earn by enforcing the law when they take the job.
If a cops brother is attempting to murder a person and shooting him is the only reliable way to stop it, then he has a duty to do so.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 14 2018, @06:59PM (8 children)
No, lethal force. I have no ethical qualms with seeing people die, who are inciting to riot. The cops should have manned the gates, and gunned down anyone making serious efforts to come through the gates. Failure to protect the innocent people in their custody is closely akin to that jackass who pretended to be a cop, then hid outside while a gunman rampaged through the school in Florida.
(Score: 3, Touché) by isostatic on Wednesday November 14 2018, @08:14PM (6 children)
while a gunman rampaged through the school in Florida.
All it takes is a good guy with a gun to stop that
Oh right.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 14 2018, @08:17PM (4 children)
Key word being "good guy". Don't confuse "good guy" with "coward".
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday November 14 2018, @08:21PM (3 children)
No True Scotsman to the rescue !
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 14 2018, @08:52PM (2 children)
Actually - no. That cop was a coward, plain and simple. He was no good guy at all. He thought being a cop was all about security, a pension, a nice home, and spending his hard-earned tax dollars, skimmed out of all his neighbor's pockets. He wasn't about to put himself at risk, just to save a kid, or six kids, or fifty kids. Good guy? A "good guy" is a guy who will risk himself for his fellow man. Don't confuse a self serving ass with a good guy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @09:50PM
I think you're missing the point being made above.
The "one good guy with a gun" sarcastic comment illustrates how that argument supporting wide adoption and carrying of guns is flawed reasoning.
Occasionally the good guy with a gun will have 100% positive outcomes, but I bet most times it will create problems and get the "good guy" killed by the cops or someone who doesn't quite know which person is good or bad.
Not that your commentary is invalid, a cowardly cop is a sad human being.
Here we see the value inherent in educational systems!!! *reading skills*
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 14 2018, @10:07PM
No True Scotsman character assassination, as befitting of someone who wasn't there to judge the real-time unknowns of the tactical situation, and can't handle that the "good guy with a gun" line is worthy of Hollywood, not of real situations where one or many gunmen are not gonna miss you ten times just because a scenario requires it.
There was a Good Guy With A Gun in Thousand Oaks last week. He's now dead, and his death may have saved a few people, or maybe not. The shooter killed himself when he was done, not because an actual Hero barged in to save people.
Most cops are not Rambo or John McLane. The Florida one was a bad cop, who did not do what might maybe potentially have saved lives, and hindered some of his colleagues coming in to assist. But don't buy the rhetoric that anyone who signs up to help keep the peace, or just carries a gun, is eager to go in a blaze of glory. That's the fallacy of the Good Guy line.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday November 14 2018, @08:40PM
I really believe I'd run in there even if I didn't have a weapon. And I think most of the people in this website would have done that, too.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NewNic on Thursday November 15 2018, @12:29AM
And white skin:
https://abc7ny.com/police-kill-security-guard-detaining-gunman-at-illinois-bar/4687334/ [abc7ny.com]
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @06:01PM
If the police are related to the mob, they won't shoot their own kin. If they are outsiders themselves, their brains will be splattered all over the walls of the police station once they are overcome.
Better send the prisoner out an write a report.