goon squad

Definitions

1. 1

   A group of individuals serving as enforcers, bodyguards, assassins, and the like,…

   A group of individuals serving as enforcers, bodyguards, assassins, and the like, especially persons hired for such a purpose and using violent, thuggish methods.

   • He denied charges that the union was using "goon squads," as strong-arm detachments are called on the West Coast, and asserted that any violence was provoked by the employers.
   • No one has ever accused Uganda's mercurial President Idi ("Big Daddy") Amin Dada of running a democracy. . . . In Kampala, the capital, much of the terror is committed by Big Daddy's personal goon squad, the 3,000-man Public Safety Unit.
   • But becoming the "Spirit Father" to a group of cave dwellers threatened by "bandits, insurgent guerrillas" and "goon squads hired by greedy logging companies" gives him a newfound purpose in life.

The neighborhood