Be thankful for law and order.
March 25, 2004 10:59 AM   Subscribe

Vigilante justice, Caribbean style.
posted by h00dini (16 comments total)
 
Personally, I think it might be justified in this case. The crime is heinous enough and the perpetrator would just have been a burden to taxpayers anyway. It's worrying that this type of thing is sanctioned by the authorities though.
posted by h00dini at 11:00 AM on March 25, 2004


NSFLunch.
Besides the broken english the article is hard reading with the gruesome accounts.
posted by thomcatspike at 11:08 AM on March 25, 2004


This is why we need stricter machete laws. Like waiting periods and licensing. If stuff like this keeps happening, machetes should be outlawed!
posted by bunktone at 11:29 AM on March 25, 2004


bunktone, if machetes are outlawed, only outlaws will have machetes.

What a horrible story. I don't know enough about the Jamaican legal system to know what kind of justice the guy would have received, but -- there's no winners in that story at all. Damn.
posted by chicobangs at 11:53 AM on March 25, 2004


Can anyone explain the last sentence to me?

Him just always watch what others have and if him did mad, a him bad mind mad him.
posted by maceo at 12:28 PM on March 25, 2004


Translation: He was always covetous of others possesions, and if he was crazy he has nobody to blame but himself (or his own mind).

In principle I'm against this sort of thing, but the slothlike nature of Jamaican law sort of makes it necessary from time to time. Better that than a criminal like that getting off on a technicality, I say.
posted by owillis at 12:37 PM on March 25, 2004


In these crazy times, I like to stop and think, What Would Tosh Do?
posted by adamms222 at 12:52 PM on March 25, 2004


omg!
posted by dabitch at 1:22 PM on March 25, 2004


thomcatspike: that's not broken English, it's Jamaican Patois - the mix of English, French and African languages that Jamaicans speak.
posted by bingbangbong at 1:55 PM on March 25, 2004


What a sharp thing to do.
posted by Keyser Soze at 2:05 PM on March 25, 2004


bingbangbong: it's possible that thomcatspike was referring to the article's grammatical errors, not to the quotes.

The deep wrinkles suggests and age even older than her 66.

Yesterday men drank in the community bars. All round people discussed the previous night's events. And drank.

Soon after Haase saw two of his other sisters walking on the road with his young nieces. The six-year-olds.


and so forth. that's what made it hard to read for me anyway.
posted by bluishorange at 2:20 PM on March 25, 2004


but the Patois quotes were heard to read... don't most journalists paraphrase slang and dialect to some extent when quoting? a NY Times article will modify so-called "ebonics" or "Spanglish" in their articles. NPR does a lot of editing of their soundbytes (which is why every interviewee sounds not only poised and articulate but also grammatically and structurally parallel)
posted by adamms222 at 2:25 PM on March 25, 2004


Besides the broken english... thomcatspike

Oh, the irony. ;)
posted by dejah420 at 2:27 PM on March 25, 2004


so since the whole town murdered Wiseman, which i assume is illegal, does the whole town go to jail? or is the town off the hook because they were acting in self defense?

also, why would these people drink when they could easilly just light one up? thats what i would do.

i mean, if it were legal.
posted by tsarfan at 2:34 PM on March 25, 2004


I honestly didn't have a big problem reading it, just read slower, and maybe out loud like you'd do with Finnegans wake. I did have a real hard time reading about a crazy man who probably couldn't get any kind of treatment, dead babies and children, and no justice at all. Tragic. Just tragic. And he warned them he might do this already on Sunday? Oh man.
posted by dabitch at 2:41 PM on March 25, 2004


It was kind of weird that the patois wasn't clarified in the text. The Gleaner, which is the real Jamaican daily newspaper, usually does this. (the story reads quite differently on their site)

There's going to be an investigation, and rightly so. But to be realistic, I don't think anyone is going to do much time.

FYI: Most Jamaicans are not regular marijuana users, and they get a little tired of American tourists bugging them for it constantly.
posted by owillis at 6:43 PM on March 25, 2004


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