According to reports on August 21, police said they had arrested two young men dressed as ninjas and carrying a variety of ninja-type armament such as bows, knives, throwing stars, swords, and nunchuks. The men, aged 20 and 19, were detained in an area ninjas are known to frequent, on Route 46 outside of Clifton, New Jersey.

Asked what they were up to, the men told police they were delivering “warning letters” to drug dealers and drug users in the area. According to the letters themselves, those who persisted in these “impure” activities would be stopped with “justified, yet merciful force.”

It might also be merciful, if not justified, to let these guys know that drug dealers may be armed with somewhat more advanced weaponry. Unless they are in fact ninja-sneaky, their crusade might have been a very short one had police not intervened.

It seems more likely that the two were hoping to impress some girls. The older ninja was charged with harassment based on an undescribed letter he left for an ex-girlfriend. The father of the younger one said his son was “not a maniac,” and had only been trying to help a friend. I assume that means he was the student or trainee ninja, who must act as the weapons-bearer for his elder and more experienced companion, who totally can’t carry all that crap himself, dude. Hold the nunchuks, and be quieter! God! You are so embarrassing me.

Amateur ninjas have not been especially successful in this country, so far as I can tell. In 2006, two of them ended up in a lawsuit in Collin County, Texas, after one broke his ankle while jumping off a roof during ninja training. The two had been planning to open a school to train ninjas in the “marshall arts,” but had a falling-out after the injury.