In Brief: An Example of the Crude Use of Violent Metaphors:
In Marshville, NC, the mob of ten men were fucking sure that they had the right guy. They were so positive that Tony Blakeney had something to do with the disappearance of Patrick McClendon that they cornered Blakeney in his house and beat him to what would become death at the hospital later on. How fucked up does a beat down have to be for the sheriff to say, "This is the worst beating attack I've ever seen"? Let's just say that a sheriff in a North Carolina county's gonna have seen his fair share of bottle shards embedded in faces, teeth and eyes kicked out, broken bones and smashed skulls, stomped-to-popping testicles. So the answer's gotta be: really fucked up.

The mob believed they had the right intelligence. They had pieced it together from the few clues they had and decided to act before someone else was hurt. You can bet, though, that there was a man in the group who perhaps thought that maybe they were wrong, especially since chances are they beat Blakeney for a while to get information, which he could not give since he didn't, you know, have any. And you can also bet that any man who thought they were wrong didn't say a word for fear of being labeled a traitor and just let the beat down continue. Hell, there may have even been someone in the mob who thought that even if Blakeney was involved, they perhaps should let the law do its job. Again, that man held back any protests out of fear of what might be done to him for suggesting that the rules applied to them.

And you can bet, and it'd be as sure a bet as saying Hillary's gonna be re-elected to the Senate, that when the mob found out that they had beaten the wrong man, that Blakeney didn't have anything to do with McClendon's murder, that they themselves were just blind thugs and killers, yeah, you can fuckin' bet that at least a couple of 'em came up with other reasons to justify their violence, that Blakeney had committed some other offense.

The barbarically self-righteous among us will always come up with bullshit justifications to ensure that their barbarism is warranted.