A recent news report on ABC 30 (which you can find here) about a masked crime fighter in Seattle being held at gunpoint after trying to stop a fight left me wondering if someone similar is doing the same thing in the Fresno area (the masked crime fighter part, lots of people get held up at gunpoint here I imagine). Fresno has it's fair share of crime, so what if we had our very own masked crime fighter walking the streets at night, keeping crime at bay?
At first I thought this was just some geek who took comic books way too seriously. But it turns out that there is a lose knit group of masked crime fighters throughout the country. If you go to the site superheroesanonymous.com you can how serious this actually is. And there are different types of "masks" (to borrow the term from Watchmen) out there. Some just do charitable work at places such as food banks, homeless shelters, etc. Then there are the those that actually do patrols (sometimes in groups, but the norm seems to be solo) and try to deter crime from happening. Usually this involves patrolling neighborhoods with a high rate of crime but I've seen accounts of superheroes trying to protect public property during the Oakland riots that happened last year.
But the main goal of SA is to not give one the idea that they can be Batman or Iron Man, but to inspire regular people to do community service in their areas. This can be anything from donating time at a homeless shelter or hospital to joining the local police volunteer department (which I am thinking of doing). So to answer the question I posed at the beginning of this article, does Fresno have it's own masked crime fighter walking the streets at night? Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me. But I think this city would be better off if we all volunteered a bit of our time. Though the geek/nerd in me wants to form my own version of The Avengers. If so, I call dibs on Iron Man.
2 comments:
Put me down for The Vision.
:)
"But the main goal of SA is to not give one the idea that they can be Batman or Iron Man, but to inspire regular people to do community service in their areas." - It's really good to see that there are still kind hearted people who would risk their lives to others. In terms of crime, bail bonds can be a great help if you have friends or family members that might go to jail and you want them to be released until proven guilty.
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