{"id":6054,"date":"2011-01-05T19:43:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T03:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.reallifesuperheroes.org\/?p=6054"},"modified":"2011-01-05T19:43:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T03:43:00","slug":"real-life-superhero-breaks-up-carjacking-in-washington-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/2011\/01\/05\/real-life-superhero-breaks-up-carjacking-in-washington-state\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Real Life Superhero\u2019 Breaks Up Carjacking In Washington State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally posted: http:\/\/southcapitolstreet.com\/2011\/01\/05\/real-life-superhero-breaks-up-carjacking-in-washington-state\/<\/a>
\nEvil villains looking to prey on the citizens of Lynnwood, Washington, beware: Phoenix Jones is watching.
\nKIRO Eyewitness News reports<\/a> that a Lynnwood man, identified only as \u201cDan,\u201d came \u201cwithin seconds of having his car broken into\u201d on Sunday when the alleged crook was chased off by a masked crusader. In an incident that local police couldn\u2019t confirm to TPM, Dan told KIRO a man with a metal strip was trying to unlock his car in a parking lot when help showed up out of nowhere.
\n\u201cFrom the right, this guy comes dashing in, wearing this skin-tight rubber, black and gold suit, and starts chasing him away,\u201d Dan said.
\nDan\u2019s rescuer was Phoenix Jones, a.k.a. Phoenix Jones the Guardian of Seattle, a \u201cReal Life Superhero\u201d and leader of the Rain City Superhero Movement. Almost every night, the 22-year-old Jones, who keeps his real identity a secret, enters a secret compartment in the back of a Lynnwood comic book store and emerges, in uniform, to patrol the streets. (Watch video of Jones in action here<\/a>.) His suit includes a bullet-proof vest and \u201cstab plates,\u201d and he carries a taser nightstick, mace and tear gas. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer<\/em> reports<\/a> that Jones also sports a \u201cballistic cup.\u201d
\n\u201cI symbolize that the average person doesn\u2019t have to walk around and see bad things and do nothing,\u201d Jones said. He told KIRO that since he began his patrols nine months ago, he has been stabbed and had guns drawn on him.
\nJones isn\u2019t alone in his crime-fighting enthusiasm. There\u2019s an entire<\/a> movement<\/a> of Real Life Superheroes out there, across the country. Activities appear to range from handing homeless people water bottles to actually stepping in and trying to stop violent crime. The website rlsh-manual.com<\/a> defines a Real Life Superhero as \u201cwhoever chooses to embody the values presented in superheroic comic books, not only by donning a mask\/costume, but also performing good deeds for the communitarian place whom he inhabits.\u201d Reallifesuperheroes.org<\/a> urges visitors to \u201cLet out your inner superhero and join or support our cause.\u201d
\nBut not everyone is ready to credit Jones with thwarting a Real Life Evildoer. When TPM contacted the Lynnwood Police Department, Public Information Officer Shannon Sessions said the department was aware of the \u201csuperheroes,\u201d but could not confirm the incident this week.
\n\u201cI know there was a story on it\u2013but I can\u2019t confirm that it\u2019s true and that it actually happened,\u201d Sessions said in an email. She even suggested that KIRO may have been \u201cpunked.\u201d
\nA commenter on The Real Life Superhero Forum suggested<\/a> the Lynnwood incident was staged.
\n\u201cStaged\u2026 bunk,\u201d wrote a member named Artisteroi in response to the Forum founder\u2019s posting of the KIRO story. \u201c[A]nd does anyone notice that his suit keeps getting more and more elaborate? Someone is funding this guy. That suit was made in Hollywood basement.\u201d
\nBack in November, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer<\/em> reported<\/a> that the Seattle police had made contact with the Rain City Superhero Movement. A source gave the Post-Intelligencer<\/em> the names of the eight other members of the Movement: Thorn, Buster Doe, Green Reaper, Gemini, No Name, Catastrophe, Thunder 88 and Penelope.<\/p>\n

Police say the \u201ccostume-wearing complainants\u201d are lucky they haven\u2019t been hurt.
\nIn one instance, police say a caped crusader dressed in black was nearly shot when he came running out of a dark park. In another case, a witness on Capitol Hill saw the crusaders wearing ski masks in a car parked at a Shell station and thought they were going to rob the place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Seattle Police spokesman Jeff Kappel told the paper \u201c[t]here\u2019s nothing wrong with citizens getting involved with the criminal justice process \u2014 as long as they follow it all the way through.\u201d But the article describes an incident on November 4 where police responded to a scene where Jones and other apparent Movement members were in a stand-off with a man making threatening statements and swinging a golf club. The \u201ccostume-wearing complainants\u201d declined to press charges, to prevent revealing their secret identities. As a result, The Club Swinger walked.
\nTPM also found an interview<\/a> Jones did in November with a blogger named Tea Krulos. In it, Jones describes his background in martial arts, and says the other members of the Rain City Superhero Movement \u201call have either military backgrounds or MMA training.\u201d
\n\u201cPhoenix Jones\u2026people believe Phoenix Jones may help them,\u201d Phoenix Jones told Krulos. \u201cI mean they know they can\u2019t count on it 100 percent, because it\u2019s so random, but they know it is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI symbolize that the average person doesn\u2019t have to walk around and see bad things and do nothing,\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[203,437,1374,2041,2147,2181,2182,2338,2342,2711,2890],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6054"}],"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=6054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}