First Came the Mobs, Then Came the Vigilantes

Merry old England is not such a merry place these days:

As riots in the U.K. become increasingly volatile, bands of vigilantes, in this case Muslim ones, are roaming the streets looking to take on any and all comers — mainly because three of young men in their community were run down and killed while trying to defend their family’s business. Now since many of the rioters are reportedly black, racial tensions between the two groups have flared, with one Muslim man vowing to “hunt down these black men, cut off their heads and feed them to our dogs.”

Perhaps not the best way to assuage the ever-growing hostility that is rife across the country, but that certainly is one way to get his point across.

And with the police nowhere to be seen, the town’s Muslims are allegedly gearing up with bricks, stones, clubs and cricket bats to ward off the marauding gangs.

But while their unified stance in Birmingham’s west end reportedly saved a row of family-run shops and a mosque from destruction, it came at a steep price.

This is not that different than the racial tension that existed between the black and Korean communities in Los Angeles at the time of the '92 riots. A Korean store owner had recently shot a black teenager suspected of stealing from the store. It's thought that the riots were partially caused by the verdict in that case (the shop owner got five years probation and no jail time). While the rioting and looting was taking place near Koreatown, the Koreans were setting up shop on their business rooftops with shotguns and assault rifles to keep the rioters at bay.

And it worked. Many a Korean business was saved by the presence of those guards.

Vigilantism is not the preferred way to handle things, but if the local authorities are as impotent as the London Police have been, it may be necessary.