This article is about the law enforcement agent. For the legendary hunter, see Orion (hunter). For other uses, see Orion (disambiguation).
Orion (born Jack Li Ming on June 2, 1982 in Cork, Ireland) is a world-renowned crime fighting mercenary who (unofficially) works with law enforcement. Very little exact details are known about his life because he has maintained an extremely low profile, declining interviews and public appearances. He is a controversial figure among law enforcement officials, as, despite his extensive work solving crimes in the most difficult of areas and solving the most difficult of crimes known to law enforcement agencies, some in law enforcement believe he is a criminal himself. His supporters contend that he operates "by the book" and has never actually broken a crime.
Nevertheless, certain jurisdictions have granted him immunity so he tends to operate in those areas, although his reach has expanded worldwide.
Early life[]
Orion was born Jack Li Ming to Feng Ming and Su Ming in Cork, Ireland on June 2, 1982. Both of his parents were Chinese nationals who opened a number of business in Ireland in Orion's early years. These businesses proved quite successful which made the Mings quite wealthy, though they donated the vast majority of their wealth to numerous philanthropic causes and thus didn't live as lavishly as many assumed. In his youth, Orion was a young prodigy both as an athlete- specializing in martial arts- and as an academic, being able to graduate from high school at the age of 12. He went abroad for his post-secondary schooling, enrolling at the University of Rome where he eventually finished with a PhD in history at the age of 18.
Crime fighting career[]
Parents' murder[]
The first sign of trouble in Orion's life came when he sent an invitation to his parents to attend his convocation but did not receive a reply. It is around this time that Orion went missing, presumably to search for his parents. He was spotted in Ireland numerous times in late 1994, shortly after the Beer Wars began. On November 23, 1994, a reporter for the New York Times found the bodies of the Mings in their Cork home, also noticing that the crime scene had been disturbed, as if someone had been there before him and also discovered the murders. The Times reporter suspects that this person was Orion, but he had no proof.
On January 5, 1995, the first known instance of Orion using his nickname was recorded when the police arrived at a house near Cork where two men were bound and gagged as well as a gun lying next to them. The police were drawn to the house when they received a call from "Orion, Crime Hunter" who claimed he found the men who murdered his parents. When the police arrived, Orion was nowhere to be seen. The Cork Police apprehended the men and conducted their own investigation, concluding that Orion was right, mainly off ballistics evidence from the gun recovered from the men's house and the bullets found inside the Mings' bodies. However, given the state of Ireland at the time, the men were simply executed by the Cork Police, as there was no apparatus for a trial to take place.
Social media career[]
Chronicling Orion's career is difficult. Orion typically keeps a low profile, declining interviews or making public appearances. The times where he does make an appearance are usually after he makes an arrest, since he usually leaves his notes- containing the evidence he has recovered- alongside the culprit he arrested at the place of arrest (or at his hotel room). He rarely brings in criminals to the police station, though if he does he will decline to be questioned.
His only known public activity occurs on his social media pages, which he updates usually once or twice a month. Posts are usually typical social media fare, giving Orion's social media pages the appearance of being more of a travel blog than a blog about crime fighting. He never directly discusses criminal cases of any sort, which makes it difficult to pin down which cases he was involved in. Still, it is suggested that Orion gets his leads from his social media contacts, with the traffic he generates allowing him to earn the money needed to engage in his endeavours.
Legacy[]
Legality debate[]
Orion's legacy is one that is fiercely debated among law enforcement officials. On one hand, Orion is known for his meticulousness, taking extraordinary measures to preserve evidence as well as obtaining admissible confessions. He has never arrested anyone for whom the evidence did not stand up in court, although not every person he has arrested has been convicted.
On the other hand, there are those within law enforcement who contend that Orion is himself a criminal. He often has to physically subdue and restrain the people he arrests, which in many countries could be classified as assault, kidnapping and unlawful confinement. His supporters counter that Orion has always followed the rules for citizens' arrests, which do allow for some kind of restraining if the arresting person believes the arrested has committed a crime and only uses enough force to successfully subdue the person.
"The difficult question," said Licinus Manus, who studies Orion as part of his criminology research at the University of Mediolanum, "is ascertaining whether or not Orion's actions qualify as only those necessary for an arrest. The police often find the culprit after Orion has dealt with him so they can't observe if Orion really crossed a line because we don't know how much he had to fight him." Manus says many of the same questions apply to the other crimes that Orion could be accused of, like stalking and invading privacy, because no one is there to observe Orion and ascertain whether or not he has crossed any legal lines.
Lack of public appearances[]
Orion has been steadfast in avoiding public promotion, declining interviews and any other kind of public appearances. He doesn't wear a mask, even in action, and does maintain a social media presence, though he rarely makes postings and rarely responds to messages. What few public comments he has made Orion has stated he keeps a low profile because he "doesn't want to be viewed as a hero", because he believes that to serve justice one needs to be humble. "You have to seek justice because it is the right thing to do," he said in an April 2017 posting, "and not because you seek fame. Otherwise, you are not serving the public- you are simply serving yourself."
Many laud Orion for his humble approach, but some criticize it as being a "different kind of arrogance." Says Manus, "there's an irony in refusing to allow yourself to become famous that you become viewed as conceited yourself. In refusing to be celebrated, there are those who think Orion is refusing to let anyone celebrate his accomplishments, believing he is somehow 'so special' that he doesn't 'need' them. I tend to see the nobility in what Orion does, but it's still a polarizing view."