In Rutland, a sense of increased crime is met with vigilantism

[sl8]

https://vtdigger.org/2022/12/09/in-rutland-a-sense-of-increased-crime-is-met-with-vigilantism/

In Rutland, a sense of increased crime is met with vigilantism

By Ethan Weinstein
Dec 9 2022

A video of citizens violently apprehending an alleged shoplifter at the Rutland Home Depot has highlighted frustration over crime and the vigilantism that can crop up alongside it.

The video of the incident, viewed more than 55,000 times on Facebook, appears to tell a deeper story than the arrest made in its wake.

Timothy Shaw, 42, of Rutland is seen pushing a shopping cart loaded with power tools. The person taking the video, pursuing Shaw, heckles him. “You just walked out with all this shit,” he yelled. “You’re not fucking walking off with that fucking shit.”

At this point, the video gets violent. The cameraman pushes Shaw in the face and tips over the cart. As Shaw bends to pick up the boxes, the man behind the camera pushes him to the ground. Shaw, stumbling to his feet, is kicked back down by the man behind the camera, twice.

[...]

[marble falls]

1. Holy shit. Wait til they kill someone by mistake.

[RealityBasedNewYorkr]

2. I'll get downvoted into oblivion for this...

…but I understand the sentiment. Here in NYC we have organize retail theft ring members as well as assorted homeless and other opportunists walk out of drugstores and supermarkets with large garbage bags full of stolen goods, sometimes several times a day. All items are then resold online or in shady stores / sidewalk “stores” for profit. Store employees are forbidden to intervene, cops do absolutely nothing (partially due to insane Alvin Braggs rules and the fact that all offenders will be out on the street to re-offend before police can fill out the paperwork). The result is stores going out of business, everything is locked up behind anti-theft plexiglass but there aren’t enough employees to come and unlock every little item, so even if the store manages to stay in business the shopping experience for normal customers has turned to crap. Also, all that “inventory attrition” gets added back into prices as markup, of course, so I can subsidize the criminal lifestyle in multiple ways. Anyway, blast away and tell me how the poor unfortunates are victims of circumstance and a disadvantaged upbringing and all that … even if you are right the quality of life for law abiding citizens here in NYC has gone to hell due to lawlessness in many forms (theft, roving dirt bike mobs, criminally insane in the subway, bla bla bla).

[rsdsharp]

3. That's too bad.

I represented a company from Rutland in litigation — at least until they declared bankruptcy.