In a random survey of whether vigilante justice (taking the law into your own hands) is right, half of Morton East students say “under the circumstances” it is — and one shouldn’t be punished severely for the crime.   This conversation has surfaced with the images and news of Cyntoia Brown on social media.

Cyntoia Brown is being released to parole on August 7, 2019, after spending 15 years in prison for killing a man.  Cyntoia Brown is serving a life sentence for killing a man who bought her for sex when she was 16 years old.   Brown was 16 years old when she became a runaway; she was exploited by an abusive “pimp” who forced her into prostitution, assaulted her, and manipulated her with drugs.  On August 5, 2004, Brown met 43-year-old Johnny Mitchell Allen (a real estate agent and US veteran) in the parking lot of a Sonic Drive-in, in Nashville, Tennessee. Brown testified that Allen offered to take her to his house where he would pay her $150 for sex.   There, she became frightened by his behavior and possession of guns; she felt threatened.  So, she shot and killed him; Brown claimed “self-defense.”  Her self-defense plea was not accepted by the jury because the victim was found with interlaced fingers under his face concluding that the victim was asleep at the time of death.

“I know that the case was dismissed at the time she was prostituting herself and she sold herself to a man, I don’t believe she should’ve have done that,” said security guard Carlos. 

Some people don’t support what Cyntoia Brown did, but others do.   

“Yeah I support her because she was protecting herself, I’ll do the same thing that she did,” said senior Destiny Alonso. 

Many would have done the same thing as Brown if they see it as self-defense. 

“I don’t think she should have been incarcerated since she was defending herself from a man who might have had bad intentions, but yet again we don’t know how the situation would have gone if she didn’t shoot first”  

This case is very controversial due to evidence showing that the way the victim was found didn’t seem as a way of self-defense  

“ It seems like a very complex answer I don’t believe killing anyone is ever truly good but at the same time I don’t think anyone except for her and that guy truly know what was going on at that exact moment, so if she was defending herself or she felt like she was truly getting hurt and her only means of getting out of that room at the time was to kill him then she did what she had to do and it’s understandable should she have been locked up for the rest of her life for doing so if that was the case, absolutely not,” said dean of students, Mr. Dugan.