ethics/political question

Who's more important, the individual, or the group of individuals he belongs to?

I came to this question when I was thinking over ethics, political theories and authoritarian/libertarian differences, and I decided the answer to this question was very pertinent but I'm not sure how to go about it.

Suppose you've got a man named A, and he's in a group consisting of himself, B, C, D, and E.

I never think it's moral to do something like, force A to pay B $5, unless A had stolen it from B before hand or something.  And I find it hard to come up with an example where I think it's justifiable to force A to pay $5 to B, C, D, and E, each, but I suppose that's what I'm asking.  Is it ever alright to forcibly sacrifice some of one individual for the rest of the group?

>>1
A stole $5 from each of {B, C, D, E} -> forcing him to pay back is justifiable.

New thought experiment:
You enter a time machine on 8/1/2050 and go to 8/1/2007 [assume there are no time paradoxes].  Your knowledge of history shows that by a strange chain of events following Bob's existence on 8/2/2007, a bridge will collapse in 2008, killing 1000.  Furthermore, you know that his non existence on that day will prevent said bridge collapse.  Do you kill this otherwise innocent man to save 1000 others?