In Chapter 2, the authors call the Rodney King
incident :
(A) An act of vigilantism
(B) A symbolic lynching
(C) A wilding
(D) An example of the 3rd degree
Thesis: Contemporary police brutality is both
historically and sociologically related to
lynchings.
Parallels:
 Both rely on legal authority to exonerate the
extralegal UOF
 Both respond to perceived threats and fears
aroused by outgroups
 Both regard the legal process as too slow, etc.
 Both are used to “teach a lesson”.
US has a long history of past violence to achieve
social control based in racism and nativism.
 This violence is spurred by groups whose aim
has been the preservation of some existing
order of social arrangements.
 All these groups are willing to break the law
to achieve their social goal since LE is seen as
inadequate and the legal order cannot deal
with “the problem”.



Emerged from the American frontier, which
produced a tradition of self-help
Danger/insecurity of newly settled areas
brought a crude style of vigilante justice
Since there was no organized LE (or what
existed was inadequate), volunteer groups
filled the gap
While necessary, this system set up dangerous
precedents:
 Even when legal order was adequate, people
could avoid these to achieve “law and order”
(which is a misleading phrase in this context)
 Private violence came to be used as a means
of enforcing a system of social, political,
economic, and cultural arrangements against
those who were seen as threatening this
system



San Francisco Vigilance Committee (1851)
KKK (1860s and resurgence in the 1920s)
NYC draft riots of 1863
Often vigilante and official justice were
congruent prior to 1960’s:
 Police participated in lynchings and other
violence
 Lynchings and executions were often
substitutes: people were executed formally or
lynch informally (e.g., murderers were
executed, rapists were lynched)
How does this relate to police brutality?
 There are inescapable similarities between
the motivations of southern police in the first
half of the century and the LAPD in the
second half
 Both seek to “teach a lesson” to people who
resist police authority and “keep them in their
place”.
 Adolph Archie case
Police must use force in their job on occasion
 Force should be proportional to suspect
resistance (UOF continuum)
 Not all cases where too much force is used
should be labeled police brutality or vigilante
justice; only a small % fall into this category
 Some policies can actually encourage force
 Example: LAPD allowing choke-holds as “control
holds” and not deadly force techniques.