Seattle’s self-styled superhero Phoenix Jones is now fighting not only crime, but an assault charge.
Jones, 23, unmasked by police as Benjamin John Francis Fodor, was recently arrested for allegedly assaulting four people with pepper spray outside a nightclub. Whereas Jones insisted they were fighting, Officer Hosea Crumpton’s incident report maintained the victims were “dancing and “Kenan & Boy.”
Jones’s equipment includes the Dragon Skin bulletproof vest, stab plating, tear gas and a stun baton. In that case, 2010 film “Kick-Ass” is probably the closest comparison, because that’s bad ass.
At any rate, there’s only one thing Jones is guilty of in my (comic) book, and that’s having a terrible superhero name.
He’s not guilty of assault, in any event. I’m no fanboy, but the police report seems woefully suspicious to me.
Who “frolicks,” honestly? Never mind the “Dougie”  — teach me those dance moves.
As it pertains to Jones and the RCSM, we ought to teach the Seattle Police Department the Joker — “Why so serious?”
A vigilante, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is a private individual who legally or illegally metes out punishment to an alleged lawbreaker.
The term is Spanish for “watchman” or “guard,” but vigilantism has existed long before the word was first introduced to the English language. Dueling, for instance, was a popular aristocratic form of private retribution before the advent of the centralized modern nation-state.
Most often, however, vigilante justice is sought for the perception that judicial criminal punishment is insufficient or nonexistent. In this manner, vigilantism is but an extension of an otherwise ineffective justice system.
Sometimes, like Batman, the vigilante is personally motivated. Sometimes, like Robin Hood, he’s philanthropically motivated. And sometimes, like Dexter, he’s just a serial killer who’s found a constructive outlet for his bloodthirstiness.
To each his own, as they say — which is precisely the point.
Nevertheless, it’s arguable that vigilantism risks false accusation and the like, subverting such key justice system provisions as the “presumption of innocence” paradigm, that one is innocent until proven guilty.
For example, businessman Leo Frank was lynched by a mob in 1915, having allegedly murdered one of his employees. Frank was officially pardoned in 1986.
In 2009, Michael Zenquis was severely assaulted in Philadelphia by vigilantes, having mistook him for an at-large rapist.
More recently, Georgia inmate Troy Davis was executed for the 1989 slaying of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail, a murder no one’s certain he committed.
Wait, I’m sorry. Davis was executed by the state of Georgia. Accordingly, justice was served, of course.
It goes to show that the governmental monopoly of justice doesn’t prevent its miscarriage, either.
No, in the absence of the adequate administration of justice, vigilantism isn’t just legitimate. It’s admirable.
My 11-year-old brother and his friends recently took the law into their own hands after their school’s administration failed to bring a school bully to justice. I stand for that principle, even if their principal doesn’t. Like Jones, they’re vigilantes.
They’re real-life superheroes.
 
Phil Sweeney is a 25-year-old English senior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_PhilSweeney.
 
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Contact Phil Sweeney at [email protected]