Unsupported Speculation

And Their Pronounced Lack of ACTUAL Investigative Capabilities

Ever want to be a vigilante? The thought occurs to many people, though few actually have the sheer brazenness to actually try it. This is due to the successful socialization of most people, which is some sort of difficult-to-pin-down constraint on behavior which prevents normal people from engaging in behavior too different from everyone else.

Related to this is another psychological thing that occurs with EVERYONE, vigilante and non-vigilante alike, which is that human beings have no natural mental ability to tell good guys from bad ones. And this is precisely where the problem with vigilantism lies, which is that they normally do not utilize ANY sort of framework whatsoever to determine who is the victim of their ‘community intervention’ and who isn’t.

For police officers, they have the ‘framework’ of local and federal laws. Vigilantes normally have nothing at all, and so WITHOUT a kind of framework of existing group agreements on what is allowed and what isn’t, you can imagine what sort of nonsense occurs that causes someone to become the victim of a vigilante.

If you become such a victim, perhaps you just dress badly. Maybe you have tats. Maybe you speak like a gutter. Maybe you listen to hard *ss mutha-f*ckin G music. Since our theoretical vigilante has no framework to consult when choosing his victims, then all he has is his commonsense, which is ONLY his common-prejudices.

Thus to fail to make a good first impression on a vigilante is for your criminal activities to be erroneously deduced by how you SEEMED to him. And then, you are vulnerable to whatever activities he engages in to attempt to stop the crimes he only ASSUMES you are involved in.

This is an unnecessarily advanced explanation on why vigilantism is illegal. The real reason is that enforcement of societal norms is only legally done by representatives of the agreements that many people made about what is allowed and what isn’t; ie Laws, and these people are then given the ONLY authority to intervene in community affairs; ie Police Officers. And don’t forget, if a vigilante believes that he took out a scumbag permanently, it is ONLY murder.

And so vigilantes lack the framework of local and federal laws to reference when determining a solo-intervention. This as a consequence makes them NOT representatives of the group, but only themselves. Is there anything else they lack?

How about ACTUAL investigative capabilities. They generally and pretty much exclusively cannot investigate anything worth a single damn. On the cheap end, it’s partially because they lack the actual authority, let alone willingness, to perform the mundane work of gathering statements from witnesses and comparing them, and THEN perhaps re-question people, interfering once again in their lives, in order to clear up discrepancies and gaps in what is being documented. This is because a vigilante is in it for the thrill and the sense of importance they derive from moving like a secret badass through the community, and this makes the behavior pursued most by vigilantes ONLY designed for maximum thrill and self-importance.

On the expensive end of the reasons vigilantes can’t investigate, is because they possess ZERO technical investigative capabilities, nor do they have the authority to request and then receive information from things such as cell and internet service providers, let alone be permitted to view a single CCTV video.

Going further, do you think a vigilante has the ability to analyze a crime scene? What about their ability to even FIND evidence, collect it in a way that doesn’t destroy its usefulness, analysis it, and reach a scientific conclusion? Do they even possess a concept of admissible and unadmissible evidence? What sorts of things do you think an unprofessional hothead thinks is an undeniable smoking gun of criminal activity?

Nay, a vigilante is only a prejudiced consumer of gossip and spreader of rumors, but different from those, because only he is willing to take things, one … step … further.

This is why Batman is fascinating. You see, Batman is actually ALLOWED to practice vigilantism in the city of Gotham by the Gotham City Police Department. It isn’t a secret that Gotham City is based on New York City, and the New York City Police Department is actually like a mini-intelligence agency which is aware of and learns things that are just,

C-R-E-E-P-Y.

Thus you can conclude that if Batman is allowed to practice vigilantism in New York City, then Batman must GET IT RIGHT every time, and THAT means that Batman’s intelligence gathering capabilities SURPASSES that of even the New York City Police Department.

Further, I must point out that Batman is the ONLY, solitary, costumed superhero allowed to operate within New York City limits. There is a well documented phenomenon in New York City of dangerous and mentally unstable New Yorkers dressed as superheroes and villains alike, who have to be chased and then cornered by first responders and sprayed with fire hoses until they drop their deadly weapons, allowing officers to safely close in and detain them.

Being a superhero or villain is HIGHLY illegal in New York City, and the city probably ranks FIRST in the world for the successful and safe apprehension of both on a routine basis. The problem is so bad there, it is even advisable to inform the NYPD before you walk from wherever the hell you found to park your car to the Comicon Convention, because if you don’t, and experienced and job-weary street cops see you in your Deadpool costume and your criss-crossed katanas, you are going to bring back bad memories, and they’re going to get twitchy.

Yeah, your saunter on your way to Comicon will be all over the NYPD’s encrypted comms, and fusion centers will be siphoning up everything they can about you, while police intelligence analysts utilize various metrics for determining your risk to yourself and the public.

Yet, the New York City Police Department actually ALLOWS an unknown and HIGHLY aggressive vigilante who dresses as a bat operate all over the city without interference. This can ONLY mean that the investigative and intelligence gathering capabilities of ‘Batman’ SO surpasses the NYPD’s that they give him the complete slide, making him the ONLY ex-judicial super-ANYTHING permitted to grapple, swing, and glide in the entire metropolis.

Everyone else is aggressively pursued, and go straight to f*ckin Rikers.