Meta-context courtesy of Rene Girard:
In-group tensions are instinctively (wrong word but can't think of one better atm) resolved through the sacrifice of an in-groupee - in this case it seems, the banishment of an apparent (the appearance matters more than the reality) transgressor.
But that only works if the in-group collectively agrees to the guilt of the transgressor: if the sacrificial victim is seen to be guilty, that translates into social stability (death-row inmates); conversely, if the sacrificial victim is seen to be innocent, that translates into social unrest (Trayvon Martin); if the in-group cannot collectively agree to one or the other, internal tensions escalate.
Alternatively, in-group cohesion can be achieved by the collective projection onto an out-group, the more apparently threatening, the better - say that Booz Hamilton's CEO threatened to sue Jeff for millions of dollars, things would straighten out here pretty damn quick.
In any case, the very real problem of in-group tension is that it tends towards escalating _contagious!_ violence. And that sacrificial victims are pretty much guaranteed.
Girard thread here:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15737&p=444996&hilit=rene+girard#p444996
[the British] government always kept a kind of standing army of news writers who without any regard to truth, or to what should be like truth, invented & put into the papers whatever might serve the minister
T Jefferson,