The Posse Deals Out Their Own Justice

Alejandro, his wife and four kids lived peacefully in squatter's village in their small one room shack. Their house was made from old tarps, card board and the few pieces of wood and metal roofing panels that Alejandro had been able to find at the city dump. The house sat at the edge of a stream bed that snaked down from the mountains providing a cool place for Alejandro's children to cool off from the tropical heat. On the other side of the stream was another village, almost of equal poverty. One day a large group of people from from that village crossed the stream and made their way straight for Alejandro's house.

That day was the end of peaceful living for Alejandro and his family. The group of people were angry and were carrying machetes. They arrived at the house and the first to arrive broke through the gate. The group burst into the house and hauled a sleeping Alejandro out of his hammock. They dragged him into the road and beat him with their fists and handles of their machetes. The crowd's anger was growing. They shouted and insulted Alejandro. One man turned his sharpened machete edge on Alejandro, cutting to his arm. They sight of blood was the end for Alejandro. Other machetes raised up and hit home. Minutes later the crowd dispersed, many with their machetes freshly bloodied. Alejandro's wife and children were left screaming and clutching a lifeless Alejandro.

The crowd had been chanting for vengeance and they took it. In just five minutes, the group of people had tried Alejandro, found him guilty  and carried out its own punishment. Alejandro was killed because real justice does not penetrate into the poorer communities, where police are often too afraid or preoccupied to enter the supposedly "dangerous" neighborhoods. Alejandro's crime was that he supposedly stole a number of items from an elderly woman's house from the other side of the stream. Someone in the crowd claimed to have witnessed him selling the woman's possessions. Whether or not Alejandro committed the crime, he was accused and punished for the crime.

In Honduras, one never knows about how things are going to turn out. When something does happen, you often still do not understand everything that transpired. Alejandro's family were traumatized by the dramatic and complete punishment that the neighboring village took out on Alejandro. In the end, they were left not knowing if he had actually stolen from the elderly woman or not. When the legal system cannot penetrate into the poor communities in Honduras, the communities will often carry out their own justice based upon a set of unbreakable rules. Cases such as the victimization of children or the elderly in enough to bring a community together to punish the culprits (or assumed culprits). Like the wild west posse, once justice is carried out there is little left to do than to bury the bodies.