(Source: © Nick Royer/Flickr/Licence)
Well, it had to happen eventually. A vigilante masking up and spending their nights fighting crime. Starting around June, a man calling himself “Reaper” has been roaming the streets of Moscow and, according to him, helping to arrest criminals after declaring war on drug dealers in the area.
“I have been wounded more than once,” he tells The Plaid Zebra, after being asked if he’s afraid of getting hurt. “It is foolish to fear pain or injury when you know what you are doing,” he adds. Reaper says he’s helping to capture criminals. So far, he says he’s caught around 40.
Public awareness of the masked vigilante skyrocketed with the release of a video that appears to show Reaper walking calmly out of a house, nonchalantly dropping a smoke bomb on the ground and walking off into the darkness – his cape ruffling through the air. The vigilante’s outfit has drawn many comparisons to Batman’s. The armour-clad crimefighter even has his own utility belt, complete with non-lethal grenades and pepper spray.
I [was] exiting from the entrance of a house where I detained two drug traffickers,” he says, when asked about the video. “I use the smoke bomb as an identification mark. This notifies the police.” Reaper does not use deadly force and says he is trying to help local police forces do their job.
“This is the first and last time I was recorded on video,” he adds.
(Source: © Reaper/Twitter)
The masked man has his very own Twitter page and has linked to an email “tip hotline” where you can reach him if you know of illegal activity in your neighbourhood. But he says that, sometimes, he just goes out and relies on nothing but luck.
Reaper reportedly sent out a letter to local police and a newspaper, according to the Daily Mail. But Russian police haven’t officially confirmed this.
“You don’t know me,” it reportedly starts. “And it is unlikely you have heard about me.”
“I call myself Reaper, and for the past six months I have been struggling with the disease that has long been plaguing our society – crime.”
“I fight drug dealers, rapists and gangs. I don’t kill or cripple, and I am not against the police or authorities, but I do root out the evil that police and the authorities can’t reach.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgu143pECZI&w=560&h=315]
