http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4bjJAAALDE
Forget the Avengers. Seattle has its very own self-proclaimed superhero league, the Rain City Superhero Movement. Its leader Phoenix Jones, 23 years old, was arrested for allegedly pepper spraying a group of people out on the street at three in the morning.
The incident occurred on Sunday “on Columbia Street near Alaskan way.” A video of the attack was captured, and shows four people, two men and two women, being pepper sprayed by Jones, real name Benjamin John Francis Fodor. He claims he was breaking up a fight, but the group says that no one was fighting.
Jones’s actions have been labeled by media as costumed activism. Los Angeles-based photographer Peter Tangen, who volunteered to be spokesman for Jones, defends the ‘superhero’ as an open criticism to an incident Jones was involved in earlier which police failed to investigate. Tangen claims one of the officer’s involved in the arrest only watched a minute of the fourteen minute long video taken of the incident.
Jones’s signature feature is his custom black and yellow suit, which police confiscated as evidence upon arresting him. The Seattle superhero spent seven hours in jail before posting bail for $3,800 on Sunday afternoon.
This particular incident was not Jones’s first time playing the hero. He has been asked several times not to insert himself into these situations and instead to call 911. His actions in this situation were deemed to have gone too far, and the police had had enough of these antics.
The whole instance is reminiscent of a recent popular Hollywood film, Kick Ass. It seems Jones and his crew have taken the idea of average citizens fighting crime too seriously and need to be brought back to reality.
