vigilante
CIVILIAN WHO UNDERTAKES LAW ENFORCEMENT WITHOUT LEGAL AUTHORITY
Vigilante; Vigilante justice; Viglante; Vigalante; Vigilante Action; Vigilantism reports; Vigilantes; Vigilante gangs; Vigilante group; Vigilantism in India
n. someone who takes the law into his/her own hands by trying and/or punishing another person without any legal authority. In the 1800s groups of vigilantes dispensed "frontier justice" by holding trials of accused horsethieves, rustlers and shooters, and then promptly hanging the accused if "convicted." A mother who shoots the alleged molester of her child is a vigilante.