I’m sure great poskim in other cities have had similar cases as well. It unfortunately happens that such cases occur where such action is warranted; fortunately they’re infrequent. But when they do transpire those poskim are correct to act.
The problem arises when vigilantes such as the unrecognized or non-poskim act outside the framework of a recognized beis din that duly has jurisdiction of the case, and act upon their own initiative and their own sense of right or wrong to engage in coercion, where the circumstances of the case do not halachicly warrant it.
Rav Nachum Eisenstein said that over many years of dealing with contentious gittin cases he only saw two cases of real agunos, where the husband refused to give a Get out of spite. All the other cases he dealt with where someone cried they’re an aguna were cases that did not qualify as such, as often it was simply the parties not having settled the divorce in a halachic manner and the aguna card was played to either generate sympathy or obtain unwarranted concessions without agreeing to settle the case on halachic terms in beis din (i.e. one party was using non-Jewish/secular courts to obtain judgements in contradiction to halacha.)