Those who sought land from 1848 onwards refused to honor the New Helvetian settlement and that Sutter alone held title to so much land; additionally, they refused to recognize the titles of speculators who sold the land at exorbitant prices. The squatters who wished to take from Sutter's land worked to find loopholes in the law that would allow them to claim the land as public and render his, and those of the speculators that bought land from him, invalid. The push for recognition of squatter's rights in the Sacramento area led to the formation of a Law and Order Association amongst the squatters. When a squatter was judged for execution and was denied passage to a squatters' appeals court, the squatters swore that they were prepared for warfare in the case that their claims were denied judgment by higher courts. Rallying under future Kansas governor Charles L. Robinson, the squatters formed militias and prepared to attack the city; however, Hardin Bigelow averted the crisis temporarily by assuring the squatters that arrests will not be made as a result of siding with Robinson. However, violence finally broke out when Bigelow moved to stop Robinson from freeing prisoners held captive aboard the prison brig, the "La Grange", on August 14, 1850. Bigelow repelled the force at the cost of his health. The Sheriff, McKinney, moved to attack a retreat near the settlement of Brighton just outside city limits; McKinney and three squatters died, but the event, which came to be known as the Squatters Riot, drew to a close. Additionally, the year afterwards, a group of 213 Sacramentans founded the extralegal Vigilance Committee after the group of the same name and purpose in the San Francisco Bay Area; lynching a prisoner who was pardoned by the mayor of the city, the committee dissolved soon afterwards, losing support after demanding that the mayor step down for interfering needlessly and when the mayor refused to do so.