‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully
> frontier justice came for McElroy courtesy of the residents of Skidmore (population 440 at the time of the crime). Shaken by the man’s ability to evade jail even after being convicted of a near-fatal attack on a grocery store owner... Belkin also details Skidmore’s plague of subsequent violence ... the series persuasively contends that these crimes indicate that the McElroy episode taught younger Skidmore generations that doing as they savagely pleased was OK—and that they could get away with it, because their friends and neighbors wouldn’t speak out against them.I'm not persuaded, at least by this text.  Another possible interpretation is that the legal system around Skidmore was completely unable to convict a repeat violent offender (McElroy), leading to a widespread (correct) belief that the legal system would not also provide any kind of useful restraint to future offenders.  Indeed, that interpretation seems more likely to me.That doesn't make the actions acceptable, of course.  But it does put a spotlight on the importance of having a working legal system that provides some reasonable level of protection to the larger community.