By Zain Cook

A man suspected of raping a 14-year-old girl in Delft felt the full force of vigilantism when he was caught, beaten and had his genitals struck with a 2,2kg hammer.

Three girls, aged 14, were on their way to a shop in Delft at 4pm on Saturday when an armed man grabbed one of the girls by the arm and pulled her across a field to an empty house in Barracuda Street.

He allegedly tied her up and raped her repeatedly, police said.

Could easily have been the next Valencia Farmer
The other two girls ran home to tell their parents and the police were called.

A massive manhunt, followed throughout the night, proved in vain.

Early on Sunday the girl escaped, and based on her description the community tracked down her alleged rapist.

The girl's angry father, a Rastafarian, said his daughter could easily have been the next Valencia Farmer, who was murdered in nearby Kuils River two years ago.

He said the police had shown they did not have the manpower to deal with crime in the area.

Stronghold for gangsters
"This is my daughter who is only in Grade 8, and the mere thought of what this criminal with his tattooed body did to her is enough for me to want to kill him," said the angry father.

He called his Rastafarian friends for help at the weekend and by 8am on Sunday, more than 50 Rastafarians in 15 cars began to comb the Hague area in Delft and with the aid of other members of the community, the alleged attacker was caught.

The man was dragged into the street where he was stripped of his clothes, repeatedly beaten and and then his genitals were crushed with a 2,2kg hammer. The bleeding suspect was handed to the Delft police.

A resident, Patrick Manual, who lives across from the old house in Barracuda Street, said it was a stronghold for gangsters and he had seen girls being dragged into the house before.

"We should have broken this house down a long time ago but we were too scared because the gangsters don't think twice about killing you."

The infuriated crowd gathered at the house later on Sunday and demolished it. They also threatened to "kill the rapist" if the court granted him bail.

"We are not going to allow the rape of our babies by these hooligans who have nothing to do but hurt others," said an angry mother.

The traumatised girl is currently receiving therapy to help her deal with the ordeal.

Delft police station's Senior Superintendent Krisjan Verwant said the community had no right to take the law into their own hands.

He said he had a plan of action to combat gangsterism and the increase in rape in the area. "We are encouraging more neighbourhood watches and as far as this case is concerned, I feel sorry for her and her parents but it's difficult to combat a crime of this nature."

The alleged rapist, who is under police guard in hospital, faces charges of kidnapping and rape, and will appear in court when his condition improves.

The crowd found another alleged rapist on Sunday after they saw a sobbing mother with her badly bruised daughter in the police station charge office.

Acting on information from neighbours, the crowd reached the suspect, a taxi driver, as the police arrived.

Police arrested the man before the angry crowd could lay their hands on him.

A total 1 269 077 cases are still unsolved.

He said these figures reflected negatively on the efficiency of the South African criminal justice system.

If this case follows the South African norm lately, he will go to trial and get slapped ont he wrist.  I hope he is let go and the neighborhood takes care of him.

This was particularly idiotic:


Why the hell not????  The police there have showed they are powerless to stop anything.

Good for the locals!!!

[beer]

Bravo! It's about time someone step up and take charge. I would do the same if it were my daughter and the cops lagged on looking for the f*ck up.

Of course it would suck really bad if they got the wrong guy.

[b]Now that is cool!!![/b] bet rape will go down drastically in that neighborhood.

2.2Kg? Is that something like a 5 pound hammer? Yeeeouch! Wouldn't be much left. [:X*]

Catching someone in the act and taking appropriate action is understandable. Torturing and mutilating someone you suspect was involved is not. What if YOU were the innocent suspect?

Yes, it would really suck if it was the wrong guy.

I think Vigilantism is fine, but the mob mentallity isn't.

Example?

I was working at a womans house last year in the crime ridden black part of town. When we arrived, the house was completley surrounded by police tape, but no police cars.
We saw the door was open, and the woman was inside.
She told us to go about our buisness doing what we had to do- She had been the victim of a home invasion the night before, and she was OK.
So, we started working, when we noticed a man come from out of the woods behind her house, and pick up a bike that had been sitting in her front yard.
We paid no mind to it, since the part of town we were in really wasn't conducive to us trying to stop a bike thief. So, the woman comes out of the house, screaming "WHERE DID THAT BIKE GO!" Turns out, the guy who had done the invasion left the bike when he fled on foot the night before, and that was him returning to get it.
She freaks out, calls the police, then calls her nephews. Her nephews arrive within a couple of minutes, chase the guy down in their car, beat his ass (B_A_D), drag him back to the house and waited for the cops to get there (The burgler wasn't going to try and make a break for it the after way they beat him)

That kind of vigilantism is OK. They had a positive ID on the guy they were after, and they knew where he had gone.

But a mob of 50 people?

Maybe 1 in 10 is even remotley related to the case at hand. The rest are just out for a good bloodletting. Likely, none of the mob knows what to look for in the suspect since none of them actully saw him, so the first person to mistakenly get called out as being "the rapist" is pretty much toast, wrongly so.
That ain't right.

I prefer a Snap-On 40 ounce deadblow hammer.




Beauracrats are skilled at developing plans.  Too bad they suck at executing said plans.

Eddie

Is this what happens when untrained civilians take the law into their own hands? No trial? Do you give up your rights because your a suspect?(this is for all the cop haters[-!-] out there who post the same kind of inflamatory B.S. about cops and then make generalizations. So don't get your dick in knot if it doesn't include you.)

The citizens caught the bad guy and turned him over to the police.  So he got roughed up a little, maybe he was resisting. Anybody got video?

Damn! If I could tie my dick in a knot I'd be a movie star![:D]

Yeah we see just how great LE training is every day don't we?  Rodney King.....  LA County illegals....  Luema(sp. the guy beaten and violated with a mophandle in the bathroom of a [i]police[/i] station)....

Not isolated events, rather they are more radical events of cops taking justice into their own hands.  The LA riots were bullshit, but the blacks in the area did have a legitimate beef with the cops.  

And before you get your dick into a knot, I don't hate cops.

Not an isolated event? LEO's in the U.S. are involved in millions of interactions with the public every year in the course of doing their job.  How many suspects end up like Louima? Rodney King was no alter boy.  

Don't get me wrong I'm not condoning these actions. Let's not blow these criminal actions out of proportion like the antis do with gun violence committed by criminals.  

How in the hell did this turn into a cop bashing thread?????????  Enough already!!

For those bemoaning the rights of this piece of garbage, read up on the rapes and other acts of violence that are occurring in South Africa and the lack of criminal prosecution involved.  I understand about us losing our rights in this country, but who here can disagree that even those caught red handed in our own country get off because of technicalities and prosecutorial screw ups and that the rights of violent criminals seem to override the rights of law abiding citizens?