How exactly did high-profile crimes get handled before the FBI was established...

How exactly did high-profile crimes get handled before the FBI was established? If a local police force had a issue which they didn't have the manpower to deal with, who exactly would they call?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeur_d'Alene,_Idaho_labor_confrontation_of_1899
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Army.

That's illegal.

What's illegal?

The Army.

Using the army to deal with law enforcement, dates back to when British soldiers would arrest colonists.

They tended to only call the army in to contain a situation, not to arrest anyone. The army did indeed get involved but they never cuffed/booked anyone.

For a long time, all across America, there was very little in organized police forces. Most of America was smaller towns where everyone knew everyone: if someone commited a crime, you generally knew who did it, and the locals would take him in to the court house.

I think the counties had a sheriff who could deputize volunteers to go look for anyone who ran, too.

I'm not sure all the ways this changed as it got closer and closer to the modern era, but you can see the transition period in what you know about the West. Eventually the country became too big for this system to work and crime was getting too organized, so they had to change.

It's hard to understand now because early America was truly government by consent, and everyone played their part in it, whereas now it's government because it's the government.

>you generally knew who did it
Like when people knew about evolution, gravity, laws of motion before their discoverers?

Or in other terms, "I knew it was going to happen, you should've believed me when I told you about the dream I had last night about the rain coming today."

If the wife of Joe Blow, the local alcoholic, is found dead from a severe beating, they likely knew who did it.

There really wasn't much organized crime back then. There was some banditry. When it did happen, citizens were more responsible and LEGALLY took matters into their own hands. And they still had to prove that it happened in court.

I think Marshall were granted liberties to operate over States lines for prosecuting and investigating people.
What are they going to do? Call in the Army's Army?

Good post. But people helping the sheriff with the investigation of a crime is no more proof of government by consent than modern day volunteers for disaster relief are, tho.

Pinkertons

>high-profile crimes
Army. Not even joking.

I mean, for the longest time America was just a lot of small towns in the middle of the forest.
The only kind of high-profile crimes you could commit were crimes of infidelity, or refusing to pay taxes.

Automatic weapons were not a thing, highways and cars were just becoming a thing, theirs just not a lot a crazy nut could do with a high power musket back in the old days.

The FBI was only established because as technology advanced, it became possible for individuals to actually do serious damage.

In 1871, Congress appropriated $50,000 to the new Department of Justice (DOJ) to form a suborganization devoted to "the detection and prosecution of those guilty of violating federal law." The amount was insufficient for the DOJ to fashion an integral investigating unit, so the DOJ contracted out the services to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

The FBI was established in response to criminals like Bonnie and Clyde who would constantly escape just by fleeing across state lines. There was no such thing as a national manhunt. If you could get 100 miles away from wherever the crime was committed, you were pretty much in the clear.

The witch hunts took place. The inquisitions took place.

It doesn't matter whether organized crime existed or not. People's judgment of others are based purely upon emotional gut instincts and beliefs/faith rather than scientific or rational views.

statist pls go

>Automatic weapons we'rent a thing
>Cars and highways were just becoming a thing.

Also might I add:
>high powered muskets

Are you fucking retarded? By the time the fbi was established (1930s) cartridge firing guns had been common in the USA for 60 years.

One of the earliest repeating rifles during the civil war had a 34 round magazine ffs.

People have committed mass shootings with shittier weapons than that

The literal predecessor to the FBI (even though they now work along side each other): The U.S. Marshals Service.

>who exactly would they call?
Ghostbusters

>If a local police force had a issue which they didn't have the manpower to deal with, who exactly would they call?

Options available back in the day came in a variety of forms, and state governors were generally the authorizing authority.

You had local militias, where pretty much every able bodied male between like 18 and 40, or some shit, could be called out to serve under the commission of appointed officers serving as the governors representatives. You also had sheriffs requesting and getting funds from the state in order to deputize large groups of citizens to assist them in an apprehension. And yet another option were appeals for assistance written to the governor, resulting in the governor authorizing the formation and activation of special groups under the command of appointed officers or law men.

All of these approaches were used to deal with a variety of security issues ranging from marauding Indians, to Mezkin bandits, and typical criminals.

you mean like hostage situations? riots? mafia/gang related takedowns?

Those things continue today, theyre called drone strikes, gitmo, wars on concepts etc

Also Rangers.

Rangers were State appointed, not federal. Think State Patrol.

State police and Federal Marshals mainly. Also agents of the Treasury, IRS, Secret Service, Coast Guard, etc, if something ended up falling into their jurisdiction.

And? It happened quite often back in the day. Race riot? Workers striking at a coal mine or railway? Call out the army or national guard to deal with them!

As a couple examples, in 1899:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeur_d'Alene,_Idaho_labor_confrontation_of_1899
>One thousand men were herded into an old barn, a two-story frame structure 120 feet long by 40 feet wide and filled with hay. It was "still very cold in those altitudes" and the men, having been arrested with no opportunity to bring along blankets, "suffered some from the weather." The overflow were herded into boxcars. The prisoners were then forced to build a pine board prison for themselves, and it was surrounded by a six-foot barbed wire fence patrolled by armed soldiers. Conditions remained primitive, and three prisoners died.

>The U.S. Army followed escaping miners into Montana and arrested them, returning them to Idaho, and failed to comply with jurisdictional or extradition laws. One man arrested and transported was a Montana citizen who had no connection to the Wardner events.

And after WWI MacArthur, against the president's orders, violently dispersed the Bonus March in DC with infantry, tanks and cavalry. (General Patton was in attendance with the cavalry.)