Vigilantism Explained: From Gary Plauche to Mobs and Death Squads

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

On March 16, 1984, in the Baton Rouge airport, Gary Plauche stepped away from a bank of payphones and shot Jeff Doucet in the head as police escorted him to face charges of kidnapping Plauche's son. News cameras recorded it. This episode uses that moment to ask what vigilantism really is and why it keeps returning. Political scientist Regina Bateson names three requirements: the act is extralegal, it involves real action, and it answers a perceived violation of a norm. Scholar Les Johnston adds that it is planned. A riot is chaos. Vigilantes believe they are restoring order.

The pattern is ancient, from the brothers who avenge Dinah in Genesis 34 to the legal private wars of medieval aristocrats. It resurfaces whenever a state cannot or will not protect people, and it rarely stays contained. The episode follows the idea from villagers fighting cartels to wealthy businessmen funding private investigators, then on to ideological policing, death squads, and livestreamed ambushes staged for an online audience.

• In Mexico in 2011, a group of local women armed with rocks and fireworks attacked the buses of cartel-backed illegal loggers, drove out corrupt police, and set up a self-governing community.
• On August 13, 2004, about 200 women stormed an Indian courtroom and killed Akku Yadav, who had terrorized their neighborhood for a decade while police looked away.
• In 1930s Chicago, the Chamber of Commerce funded the Secret Six, a private intelligence network that aided Eliot Ness against Al Capone.
• During World War One, the American Protective League turned from crime to hunting anyone suspected of pro-German sympathy, showing how fast protection becomes political suppression.
• In Hampshire, England, in 2006, someone slashed the tires of more than 20 cars and left notes warning owners against using mobile phones while driving.