For aggression to be anti-social or predatory the only requirement is that the party that does not initiate aggression did not seek out or agree to a mutual combat. Virtually all violence involving a group, either an attacking group or a defending group, on one side, and an individual on the other side, is predatory, and not social. However, neither the defender nor aggressors in this encounter had more social standing in the hierarchy of aggression, which only includes military, police, political, judicial, and paramilitary [contractors and militia] entities, therefore this is horizontal violence.

There is a tribal element to this encounter as the Dirt Bags were rivals of a clique called “The Cakes” which Dan’s brother belonged to. These were two groups of whites aligned tribally, largely along economic lines.

#59-10: night, under a minute, first-person defender

“It was football season. I was fifteen, a hundred and forty pounds, walking home from my girl’s house at about ten-thirty PM. I was walking up the side of the road up Benavon Heights [Pittsburg] hill. My older brother had a feud with this group we called the Dirt Bags.

“All of a sudden a maroon LTD four-door pulled up with four of them in it: two-three years older than me, not big for their age; one-thirty to one-sixty. The passenger side pulls by me and they slam on the breaks. I picked up my pace as they backed up—kept walking. The passenger says, ‘You Darill Funk’s brother?’

‘Yeah’ I said.

“The driver is getting out and the passengers are pushing their doors open. The guy in the back seat was hurrying out when I kicked the door into his legs and knocked him back into the car. When the driver tried to tackle I did a standing sprawl and punched him pretty good. Right cross. Good shot. Didn’t stop him. The passenger hit me and knocked my glasses off. I hit him with a right cross and the driver with a left hook. I lost my balance trying to deal with two guys at once, and the next thing I know I’m getting kicked and stomped.

“They said, ‘Next time it ‘ill be your brother.’

“I was on my knees looking for my glasses—Mom would kill me. A neighbor pulled up and helped me. I went to the hospital: black eye; bloody nose; skinned face, knees, elbows, bruised ribs, tennis shoe mark across head…

“Darill wouldn’t let my mom call the police. He went hunting. A conventional beating on one. His friends beat another. He yanked the driver out through the car window, threw him, and pounded him. I eventually got a one-on-one with the driver.”

If, these aggressors had been acting in the same fashion, but with a law officer standing security for them, than this would have been a case of hierarchal aggression. If, Dan had been with a police officer, politician or court official who told them to move off, and the Dirt Bags attacked heedless of the State official’s presence, this would have been a case of heretical aggression. Also, if Dan had been in a place of business—all of which, according to our society’s implicit social contract, operate under the presumed protection of the State—and had been attacked, than this encounter would have mushroomed into a heretical encounter. Therefore the recent cases in Baltimore, in which the police stood down under mayoral orders while businesses were looted by mobs, and then refused to investigate looting of drug stores by break-in crews [for which there was video evidence] represents a breach of the social contract.