I have always been fascinated by the story of Kitty Genovese. Her story takes place in New York. Kitty was a 28-year old female from an Italian-American family. She was a bar manager at a small neighborhood in Queens. Most nights she worked late. On the frigid morning of March 13, 1964 around 3:15 a.m., as Kitty was approaching her apartment a man approached her. Kitty ran, but the man, Winston Moseley, caught her and stabbed her twice in the back.

Kitty screamed loudly, “He stabbed me! Help me!”. The scream was heard by her neighbors. Accounts of that night suggest that a neighbor shouted at the perpetrator, “leave her alone”. What we know is that Moseley entered his car and left the scene, while Kitty tried to reach her apartment. Her wounds impeded her from getting to safety. Ten minutes later, the attacker returned covering his face with a hat to finish what he had started. He viciously searched for her and once he found her, he continued his assault. Moseley stabbed her multiple times for more than 20 minutes. The attacker took $49 dollars and Kitty’s life.

The police was called minutes after the attack. After detectives investigated the scene, they collected 38 eye-witness testimonies. But this is what makes this case special, NONE of them called the police during the attack. Why?

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

This incident prompted many social psychologists (see Darley and Latané) to study the reason for this type of apathy. The findings suggested two reasons why people did not act, diffusion of responsibility and the bystander effect.

Diffusion of Responsibility is the tolerance of situations due to being a member of a larger group, in contrast to not tolerating it if they were alone. For example, people doing unethical acts because someone else told them to. This has happened multiple time in wars, corporations or cults.

Bystander effect is the inability to react to an emergency when other people are present. In other words, how many times have you seen a car on the shoulder of a highway and not stop because you believe someone else will call for help, or that help is on the way.

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Now, let’s get back to the present. We would like to believe those types of incidents are a thing of the past and would not happen now. Wrong. As early as last month, we witness the same type of apathy in Philadelphia. On September 8th, 2008 a 20 year-old man returning from work via the subway, was attacked by a man with a hammer. The attacker, who was with a 5 year-old child, pulled a hammer and started hitting the victim over the head for no apparent reason.

The attack spilled over to a station plaza where it finally stopped. The mass transportation cameras recorded the incident (Type “Philadelphia Hammer Attack” on a search engine to see the video). As it was with Kitty, this incident was witnessed by multiple individuals riding the same subway car. None of the 10 passengers acted to help the young man or called the police to report the incident.

There are multiple recorded incidents demonstrating the same type of inaction by people. What I find sad is that if someone has acted, these crimes could have been prevented. I’m not advocating putting yourself in harm’s way, but we to renounce to the mentality of “I and no one else“. We will never be better than those 38 witnesses if we act as spectators to the tragedies of others. Remember, we all could have been Kitty. My question is “How far are we from Kitty?”

I would like to hear from you. Post comments and tell me what you think.

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