vigilance committee

Among the earliest: groups of “Rangers,” Southern California horsemen assembled nominally to hunt down Mexican “bandidos” but who, as a vigilance committee, became judge, jury and even executioner themselves.

When they learned that the loggers had finally arrived, members of Sawawo's vigilance committee traveled up the Amônia in their boats.

Therefore, communities would organize their own forces, called "vigilance committees" whose job was to be "vigilant" to protect their own homes and communities.

Stephen C. Foster was mayor in the 1850s when a “vigilance committee” he belonged to, a kind of volunteer police force in crime-stricken L.A., tried to lynch an accused murderer.

“Even before the Civil War, Louisiana was infamous for its frequent feuds, street fights, duels, whiskey brawls, vigilance committees and outbursts of violence,” the historian Gilles Vandal wrote.