Getting harder to levy instant justice
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
When Durango, Colo., liquor store owner Gabe Fidanque would catch a shoplifter, he would give the shoplifter a choice — give Gabe one of his or shoes, or he would call the police. His theory was that the shoplifters would be too embarrassed to come back again after the shoes. A sort of instant justice.
But the police told Fidanque to stop doing that, or risk facing charges of felony robbery.
That has me wondering. I’m sure the Durango police think they are making the right call, but I think Fidanque might have had a good idea: If someone steals from one, steal from them right back. Maybe they won’t steal again.
It isn’t the only example of crime victims getting mad at crooks, and getting even on the spot.
Every once in a while a story will hit the news about an irate homeowner catching a tagger and forcing the tagger to clean off his mess. Or, once in a while, the homeowner will point a can of spray paint at the tagger and paint him up before sending him home to his parents.
Turns out that’s illegal, too.
A guy in a town where I used to live would drive his pickup around on Saturdays and tear down all the illegal signs he could see on utility poles, and uproot the illegal ones poked into lawns on public rights-of-way. He would take them to the dump. The dump reported him, and he got a good talking to from the cops for all his trouble.
My father had a grocery store, and when he would catch the occasional youthful shoplifter, he would take him into the back of the store and spank him with a flyswatter. Usually the kids didn’t shoplift again.
That couldn’t happen today, darn it.
