Originally posted: http:\/\/thegazette.com\/2011\/10\/13\/masked-superheroes-patrol-utah-streets-for-crime\/<\/p>\n
by Associated Press<\/a>\u00a0 :: \u00a0UPDATED: 13 October 2011 | 11:54 am\u00a0 :: \u00a0in News Hawk by John McGlothlen<\/a>\u00a0 :: \u00a0No Comments<\/a> Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The group, called the Black Monday Society, formed about five years ago when founder Dave Montgomery, who started calling himself Insignis but recently has changed to Nihilist, had stopped drinking for about six months. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[215,259,711,959,1734,1868,1935,2173,2181,2289,2290,2652,2828],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16222"}],"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=16222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSHEENA MCFARLAND, The Salt Lake Tribune
\nSALT LAKE CITY (AP) \u2014 Dusk is descending upon Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n
\nThe costumed avengers start at the Salt Lake City Library and fan out. Always in groups of at least two, they are on the lookout for trouble.
\nThey happen upon a mother and grown son in a screaming match on their front lawn.
\nCalmly, the masked men walk into the fray, saying nothing.
\nThe son backs down, gets in his car, and tells his mother he\u2019ll be back later.
\nThey\u2019re not millionaires out to avenge their parents\u2019 deaths and none of them has been bitten by a radioactive spider. Nevertheless, they say they are helping in situations like the one they described above.
\nMost of them are tattoo artists from Ogden who claim they are atoning for past lives that include alcoholism, gang life and being the muscle for drug dealers. Others say they do social work or lease apartments and just wanted a unique way to do service.
\nThe group, called the Black Monday Society, formed about five years ago when founder Dave Montgomery, who started calling himself Insignis but recently has changed to Nihilist, had stopped drinking for about six months. He found the members of the Society through a website claiming to bring together real-life superheroes\u00a0and met with some who lived in Utah. Within six weeks, they were roaming the streets.
\n\u201cIt was as addictive as any drug,\u201d said Montgomery, who dresses in black leather with silver studs. \u201cYou fall into a whole other self.\u201d
\nThe name comes from the idea of being able to turn someone\u2019s bad day into a good day, he said.
\nThe group started with just two people, but quickly grew, peaking at 19 members, all of whom came with their own uniforms,\u00a0superhero\u00a0name and backstory worthy of any comic book. Nearly everyone in the society has a tattoo that\u2019s given after completing a certain number of patrols.
\nBut when it\u2019s real life \u2014 balancing families, significant others and jobs \u2014 the burnout rate is high.
\nThe group now has nine men who patrol downtown Salt Lake City at least a couple of times a month, but they are careful to distinguish themselves from what people see in the new Batman series or the movies \u201cKick-Ass\u201d and \u201cWatchmen.\u201d
\n\u201cThose movies have done more damage to the real-life\u00a0superhero\u00a0community than anything else,\u201d said Mike Gailey, a 6-foot-1-inch, 245-pound man who goes by the name Asylum. \u201cYou can\u2019t just go out and beat someone up for jaywalking.\u201d
\nIn the five years they\u2019ve been together, they\u2019ve never come to blows with anyone, they said. A check of Utah court records shows no criminal history for any of the members in the state.
\nUsually, they say, just their presence is enough to startle someone into thinking clearly again or calm down a situation where people are engaged in a shouting match or fighting. Much of the time, they\u2019re helping a person passed out from too much drinking find his way home or bringing food to homeless people.
\nGailey says the group serves as an extra set of eyes and ears for the police. They do carry pepper spray, high-decibel whistles and Tasers, but they\u2019ve never had to use any of them, he said.
\nThe Salt Lake City Police Department is familiar with the society and the work it members do. The department doesn\u2019t look at them as criminals or vigilantes, said Detective Dennis McGowan, but also can\u2019t vouch for them because they have not received the training that, for example, conventional Neighborhood Watch groups have received.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve never had a problem with the Black Monday Society, but it\u2019s our watch groups that we know are properly trained and know how to alert police to a problem,\u201d McGowan said.
\nGailey claims he joined after serving as a man who collected debts across the state \u201cone way or another\u201d for drug dealers. After being the one called in to identify the bodies of three close friends who died in drug-related incidents, and losing a few more, he said he realized he needed to change. He made some of those changes, including starting a family, and began working with Montgomery at Frankie\u2019s Tattoo Parlor in Clearfield, which serves as the group\u2019s de facto Batcave, about the same time he joined the society.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s my way to give back to people I had helped hold back,\u201d he said.
\nWally Gutierrez claims he left behind the gang life as a teenager in Kansas after his friend was stabbed multiple times and his mother decided to uproot him and his younger brother for a new start in Utah. The now-30-year-old has four kids and doesn\u2019t see much time as Fool King anymore. The same goes for some of the other original members.
\nThat\u2019s where the younger generation comes in to play.
\nThey are about half the size of their mentors, and they don\u2019t share their troubled pasts. They just wanted to find a way to express themselves while giving back to their community, said Roman Daniels, who dresses his 5-foot-7, 150-pound frame as Red Voltage.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re trying to do some good out there,\u201d said the 23-year-old Sandy resident, who began patrolling April 2010 and often totes bags of bottled water, snacks and toiletries. He is now the official leader of Black Monday Society.
\nAnother member, who didn\u2019t want to be named for fear of reprisal at his job where he works with disabled adults, but dresses as Iron Head for his patrols, said he also will remove graffiti in his neighborhood in Kearns.
\n\u201cA lot of us got into it because we\u2019re trying to make up for something in our past,\u201d Gailey said. \u201cThese guys got into it because they have a love of justice. They\u2019re just great, pure-hearted guys.\u201d
\nDaniels and his fellow society members have broken up their share of fights, including times when he\u2019s had to call police to report a crime and detaining people who have committed crimes.
\nBut alerting police to a problem as they patrol random streets is no longer enough for some members of the society.
\nAbout a month ago, Montgomery started what he calls a more \u201cvengeance-based, tactical\u201d branch named Doomwatch. They\u2019re working with an official bounty hunter to learn laws and tactics, and they plan to be in high-crime areas so they can \u201ctake a more hands-on approach\u201d and intervene in more altercations.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t want heroes just to be an urban legend,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cI want people to see us and say there are real\u00a0superheroes\u00a0in the world.\u201d
\n___
\nInformation from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http:\/\/www.sltrib.com<\/a>\n<\/div>\n