Detroit Neighborhood Turns Vigilante over Rape Case

Attacks suspect, who has not yet been charged with a crime

On a pleasant, partly sunny afternoon, an armed security guard stood watch over an apartment building in the Hubbard Farms neighborhood in southwest Detroit.

The guard wouldn't say why he was there. But behind him last Tuesday, scrawled onto the ornate stone facade of the building on West Grand Boulevard, the word "rapist" could still be seen, even after efforts that morning to scrub it off. A faded blue arrow sprayed above the graffiti letters still pointed to an apartment window, still condemning whoever lived in that first-floor home.

But the 43-year-old occupant wasn't there any longer. His family moved him, afraid he'd be killed.