In Real Life, Citizens Shooting Suspects Is Unforgivable

Finally got around to seeing “Unforgiven” last weekend. Despite having the outer demeanor of a pussycat, I’ve been a Clint Eastwood fan since the “Dirty Harry” series and never once flinched when he used the Magnum to mete out justice to the bad guys. Resolution, baby.

Set in the Old West of around 1880, “Unforgiven” could pass as part of the “Dirty Harry” anthology. Sort of a “Dirty Harry: The Early Years.”

The justice dispensed in “Unforgiven” is simple, brutally simple:

An English gunslinger doesn’t surrender his gun; he’s surrounded by shotgun-toting townsmen who watch as the sheriff kicks him into bloody submission.

A bounty hunter corners his prey in an outhouse and blasts him from his throne into Kingdom Come.

The posse picks up Clint’s sidekick, and the sheriff, short on patience with the suspect’s non-responsive answers, bullwhips and beats him to death and then props him up in a coffin on Main Street.

Talk about resolution. I leave the theater and begin the self-examination. I should feel revulsion for the violence. When it happens to the good guys, I do. When it happens to the bad guys, I don’t.

But wait a minute. What kind of justice system is it when the sheriff or bounty hunter or the townspeople pass sentence on the spot? That’s not justice, even for scoundrels. So why am I applauding inwardly when they get their comeuppance? And I call myself civilized?

Thus, the constant battle for supremacy between the primitive instinct and the cerebral instinct.

Accepting my inner conflict, I rationalize that it’s only the movies and, therefore, escapist entertainment. Besides, that was the Old West and this is modern civilization.

Which brings us to the news. Last week a Northern California woman named Ellie Nesler, a 40-year-old single mother of two, pumped five slugs into a man accused of molesting her son and three other boys. She shot him dead while he sat in a temporary courtroom. She did the deed rather calmly and methodically, just like the sheriff in “Unforgiven,” minus any screaming rage or signs of outward momentary delirium.

In short, she dispensed justice.

You might argue that too much shouldn’t be made of an isolated case of a woman reacting violently to someone charged with molesting her son. Clearly, child molesters are way, way down on the list of society’s favorite people. Even in prison, they lead an endangered life.

It’s not Ellie Nesler’s actions that tell us something about our society, however. She may well be “The Forgiven,” considering the trauma.

No, it’s the reaction from her friends and other strangers that is revealing and ultimately troubling.

On Monday, about 70 people, many of them children, serenaded and cheered Nesler when she showed up for her arraignment. Outside, pickets supported her, sporting signs and clothing with slogans like, “Protect Our Children. Mandatory Castration for Molesters.” Another sign read, “If the Law Can’t Do It, Then We Will.” An especially chilling news photo caught a row of children holding up a banner proclaiming, “Way To Go, Ellie.”

Way to go, Ellie.

Way to pass on to the children that the best way to handle a suspect is to shoot him five times while he awaits trial.

Way to tell the children that if the courts can’t handle justice (as defined by the chosen few) that the townsfolk will do it.

Way to tell the children that when we tell them violence isn’t the answer, we mean it . . . sort of.

Way to go, Ellie. Way to go, friends of Ellie.

One wonders whether they’re going to stop with their local province. Accused child molesters aren’t confined to Sonora.

It’s hard not to think of Father Richard Coughlin here in Orange County, recently accused by various adults of molesting them when they were boys under his tutelage. Would we applaud if “Friends of Ellie” gunned down the priest?

Society is fracturing, we know that. Crime abounds, we know that.

But societal breakdowns can be defined in more ways than by counting up the street crime.

It can also be measured by the response of so-called civilized citizens. In Sonora this week, Ellie Nesler and her friends did their part to further that breakdown. They probably don’t see it, and that’s what is scary.

The deed is done in Sonora.

The most we can hope for now is that the killing is left at that. Let’s hope that they don’t ask the townspeople what they want to do with the corpse. Sure as shootin,’ they may vote to prop him up in an open coffin and display him on Main Street.