Wall o' text so bear with me ..
One of my mates works in the navy. Someone was stealing lots of expensive stuff from the lockers. There are - like - 300 people on board. Over months, major irritating. No-one knew who it was and the official investigation was getting no-where. So my mate got together with about 50 sailors who they pretty well trusted not be be thieving. They all chose a weekend not to use their lockers at all. The lockers are black. They all painted 'non-set, black, non-removeable' paint all over their lockers on Friday night when everyone else not on duty was elsewhere.
Saturday night .. their plan worked -- one guy comes in the canteen nervously wearing gloves (!!). Upon getting the gloves off him, his hands are covered in black non-removeable paint. Busted 100%. They went to the officers and believe it or not to cut a long story short there was 'not enough evidence' despite him not being able to account for the paint or where he was at recent thieving times, and the guy got released without charge
. The sailors wanted him gone but the guy had got off Scott free. None of the sailors were prepared to break ANY regulations to get revenge (threatening, hurting etc) so here is what they did.
Whenever the guy entered the canteen or any communal place, every single person in there would stop whatever they were doing, whatever they were saying, just go dead silent, all look directly at the guy, and simply point directly at the guy in silence as he walked around doing his business. 300 men. A busy old canteen, sudden absolute silence and everyone just pointing at the one guy right the way until he left the room again. People would even stop ordering food (or in the gym using the equipment). Even lots of the officers did it!! No navy rules were being broken. Can you imagine?
The 'unproven' thief lasted 3 days and resigned. Career over, 'get off at the next port'. On day 3 apparently he was in tears - the silence and steady pointing remained absolute.
The question is this -- is this 'fair justice, nice work getting rid of the guy ' or is this 'mob justice, very nasty'?? I'm finding it difficult to choose between the two ..