Keena Wilson
22 February 2011
Guatemala 'thieves' lynched over flour theft
Blog #6
Usually when people are suspected of a crime they are brought in by the police for questioning or sometimes even put in jail. But, in Guatemala things are handled a lot differently. Four suspected thieves were lynched in a suburb of the capital Guatemala City this week. The men were seized by a group of local residents after they had allegedly stolen a truck that was carrying flour. Eyewitnesses said the suspects overpowered the driver, passenger, and security guard of the truck as they were delivering flour at a local bakery. The suspects tried to drive away with the truck, but did not get very far. The local residents managed to stop them before they could leave the area. The suspects were pulled out of the truck, severely beaten, and hauled to a football field where the residents then poured petrol over the men, set them alight, and hung them. The residents told local media they had been enraged by a series of robberies in their area this month. This may be the reason why the residents put the suspects through such torture.
First thing that comes to my mind is where were the police? Officials said residents stopped firefighters from gaining access to the football field where the lynching took place. But, once again my question is where were the police? If firemen were there then you would think that the police would have been there as well. Human rights groups say there were more than a hundred lynchings in Guatemala last year, mainly in areas where there was little or no police presence. Police, according to Answers.com, is a body of persons making up such a department, trained in methods of law enforcement and crime prevention and detection and authorized to maintain the peace, safety, and order of the community. When police are meant to maintain peace and safety but there are little to none of them where crimes are high, I feel that it could be considered a global social problem. If an important person, or any person for that matter, from another country decides to visit one of those high crime/low police areas and something bad happens to them because of little police help I feel that major problems would occur between the two countries, especially when the problem could have been prevented with police help. It also makes me wonder exactly how old some of victims were and also if some of the lynchings were just hate crimes. Taking matters into your own hands and killing someone because you suspect that they did something wrong is bad and I feel that affects not only people in that country, but people in other countries as well, especially if it could have been prevented.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12546971
1 comment:
I definitely agree with your analysis of the situation. Honestly, when I first read the summary my reaction was not about how terrible lynching’s are (they are truly terrible), but I wondered why the citizens had to take action in the first place. If I was car jacked in my neighborhood I do not think the people of my neighborhood would react by beating and lynching the perpetrator. Instead we would call the police. I agree with you, who are these citizens supposed to if the police are not around?
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