{"id":13985,"date":"2011-05-11T17:28:46","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T00:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reallifesuperheroes.org\/?p=13985"},"modified":"2011-05-11T17:28:46","modified_gmt":"2011-05-12T00:28:46","slug":"real-life-superhero-the-man-in-black-patrols-harrow-streets-at-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/2011\/05\/11\/real-life-superhero-the-man-in-black-patrols-harrow-streets-at-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Real-life superhero The Man in Black patrols Harrow streets at night"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally posted: http:\/\/www.harrowtimes.co.uk\/news\/9019699._Superhero__patrols_Harrow_streets_at_night\/<\/a>
\nBy Jack Royston<\/a>
\n

\"The<\/a>

The Man in Black: ‘real-life superhero’ Joseph Falica, 19, patrols Harrow’s streets fighting crime.<\/p><\/div>
\nHARROW criminals may sleep a little less soundly at night knowing a self-proclaimed \u201creal-life superhero\u201d is patrolling the streets.
\nThe Man in Black, aka 19-year-old Joseph Falica, dons a black trilby or flat cap and sometimes hides his face with a scarf, before jumping out of the darkness at unsuspecting troublemakers.
\nThe Harrow Weald resident has learned Parkour, an urban French discipline, which involves climbing and jumping onto the top of buildings, so he can survey the streets around him.
\nHe says he has a spot in Harrow town centre where no one can see him, but he has a perfect view of anything happening below.
\nHe said: \u201cThe main weapon I use is to inflict fear on the criminal by coming out of the darkness. It does generally work.
\n\u201cI just get people to stop and if it escalates, it escalates.\u201d
\nHowever, a Met Police spokesman said: \u201cWe strongly advise people not to take the law into their own hands. If people see a crime being committed, they should always call 999.\u201d
\nJoseph claims a recent incident involved a man who was being physically aggressive to his girlfriend in the Harrow-on-the-Hill area.
\nHe recalled: \u201cHe was pinning the girl to the wall. I just came up and scared him because I came out of the black.
\n\u201cHe asked who I was and I said, ‘That doesn’t matter, just get off her and don’t touch her again or else we are going to have a problem’.\u201d
\nAfter chasing the man away, Jospeh walked the girl home and said she was happy he had intervened, but did not really understand what had happened.
\nJoseph claims he also found some kids smoking drugs near St Mary’s Church in Harrow-on-the-Hill and moved them on.
\nThe self-appointed superhero, who was born in Britain, moved to America with his family in 1998 and says he comes from a criminal background.
\nHe claims ancestors on his father’s side were involved with the Sicilian mafia in Chicago, although his grandfather was the last in the chain.
\nWhile in America, Joseph became involved in gangs, fighting and general antisocial behaviour, but decided to turn his back on his troubled past and do something good for society.
\nHowever, Joseph’s bid to fight crime has landed him in trouble and on one occasion, he was attacked by up to four people with baseball bats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Man in Black is revealed to the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[384,638,850,1141,1142,1375,1613,1973,2181,2682,2780,2795],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}