The Eye is a street-level, practical crime fighting Real-Life Superhero (RLSH), who uses his private investigator know-how, 25+ years of electronics expertise and an extensive martial arts background to keep the streets of his city safe. Here is his second installment for Zero to Superhero. His first contribution is Color Me Super-Strong.
In the real life super hero movement (the acronym for the purposes of this writing I shall use for “real life super hero” will henceforth be “RLSH”), there is some contention regarding where the threshold lies for when a so-called RLSH might be considered instead a vigilante.
Make no mistake. When you make the decision to use your RLSH skills, attributes, and equipment to do anything that breaks the law, you are performing a criminal act, and may then be considered a vigilante. The basic definition of a vigilante is someone who has decided to take the law into their own hands, acting as judge, jury and executioner (or their personal interpretation of justice).
Let’s look at an example of RLSH crime-fighting, as contrasted with vigilante acts of violence. If for example, you come across a couple on the street having an argument, you cannot assume that there is a “damsel in distress” and just weighed in with full force. Many is the time that concerned citizens, police officers and more have done so, with the result of *both* parties in the dispute then turning on the good Samaritan, for “interfering in private business”.
So what do you do? As I would do (and other colleagues of mine have done as well), you need to determine the clear reality that you are being faced with. What that means is, say, if you are faced with an aggressive party committing an assault upon another party, and you have made the decision to intervene, you *must* first ascertain, albeit quickly, *if your help is desired*.
A quick, clear query of “Do you need help? to the victim will determine if you should attempt to intervene further, and directly, at all, for it is at this point that everything can blow up in your face, if it turns out that the answer would have been “No”, and you had never asked the question. This may sound callous, but it is the reality of our world that such things *do* happen, people *do* get into unhealthy, co-dependent relationships for reasons that we cannot fathom, and there have been many cases where a would-be rescuer has had assault charges raised against them by *both* of the participants in the argument the “hero” was trying to break up. It’s not a black and white world, nor should we treat it as such.
If after you make such a query to see the victim desires your intervention, and the answer is yes, then hopefully, if you are properly trained and capable, you may affect a successful intervention, preventing further harm to the victim. But…if the answer you receive is a *clear negative*, then the only recourse you have left is to report such to your local authorities ASAP as a disturbance of the peace, and an assault in progress, in order to get local law enforcement to intervene, and prevent further harm being incurred.
The so-called RLSH that patrols the streets at nights, looking for drug dealers to rough up, is simply another kind of criminal…a vigilante, and a polite society should not encourage such activity. If instead, you are able to, say, gather information on an alleged drug dealer’s location and business-conducting habits, and pass this valuable information onto local law enforcement, so that they may take next action (perhaps taking the form of a police stake-out to verify your claims or crime tips, and/or even an undercover buy to gather evidence against the dealer), then your actions would likely have positive value and outcome.
So, if you are presented with a situation where a victim will has given you the green light to your intervention, what should you do?
Firstly, if you even see such a disturbance starting to brew in the first place, let’s get the obvious out of the way…call the police. That way, your “back up” is on its way, no matter what. If you then ask the question of the victim, “Do you need help?”, and you get a negative response, there is nothing more you can legally do. If, at this point, you see further violence taking place that is perhaps potentially lethal, your decision to intervene would then be *your own*, and you had better consider the consequences of your actions, if you make this decision. Police files are bulging with case files of disputes that turned ugly, even deadly, where all parties involved have turned on the “rescuer”, with both physical and legal actions resulting. But I digress…
If you have been given the go-ahead to intervene, the main thing to remember is the safety of both yourself and the victim. If a gun is involved, your are better off making that police call at the first sign of trouble, and perhaps just keeping track of movements of all involved parties, from a safe distance. Depending on your personal equipment and skills, remember the idea is to diffuse the situation, not simply “beat up the bad guy”, which is quite frankly a stupid notion to ever let enter your head. Safety first. Some the devices I use are based on re-tooled personal alarms, because the last thing a criminal wants is to draw attention to himself in the commission of a crime. I find that such devices are quite useful, as they ensure that what is occurring will have witnesses galore, wondering what all the fuss is about. The downside to such devices is that, if you’re *wearing* the sonic device in question, you will then be drawing attention to *yourself*.
If you feel that you are capable of handling a potential attack at this point, based upon your knowledge of the situation, personal skill, and equipment, you will have effectively taken the attention of the assailant away from their victim, and focused it upon *you*. This will hopefully allow the victim to escape, and allow you to clearly utter the follow-up statement (turning off your personal alarm device first, of course, at least momentarily): “The police are on their way!!”. Remember, if *you* are now attacked, it will be self-defense on your part, and you will be fully justified in defending yourself to the fullest of your ability, should you need to.
In summation, the prospective RLSH needs to remember that real life is a very different thing from the comic book world, where things are often portrayed as being very black and white (or at least four-color, anyway), and that you need to take special care when dealing with potentially dangerous situations, in your personal quest to fight crime, perform public service work, raise awareness of important issues, or some combination of the afore-mentioned. The quest, as I see it, is simply this: To help others, wherever and however you may, and be ever vigilant on the behalf of yourself, your family, and your community.
I have a personal oath that I recite out loud every morning, perhaps inspired by the fictional DC Comics “Green Lantern’s own, spoken as the character recharges his ring with the power he needs to help others. In many ways, my own is not dissimilar to the intent of it. I will end this section with my oath, and if you have made the decision to follow the path of the real life super hero, I invite you to formulate your own, as I find it focuses my energy in the right direction. It reads:
This be my oath,
to vanquish fear
That all be safe,
both far and near
And pledge to ever
do my best
To aid those who
share in this quest.
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