Shoppers step over woman dying from stab wounds.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 9:19 am

In our minds perhaps each of us secretely thinks WE would be the one to help the poor woman out. But I really do wonder if that would be the case. I hope none of us ever have to find out first-hand, but chances are somebody will.

Steamwalker · Post by **Steamwalker** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:31 am

anniemcu wrote:
Steamwalker wrote:I've seen familiar phenomenon as well. You ever been in a line at the movie theater and one line has a bunch of people and another has no one in it? People will often go to the back of a long line rather than to the empty one, especially if they see others going to the long line. It's an amusing phenomenon to watch. In this case though, I have to agree with Aanvil that we don't know the entire story and it was possible that people weren't aware of the emergency.
Sorry... a woman is lying on the floor in the store, and not one person was concerned enough to check?? That's just way too far out there.

I've seen homeless people sleeping on the ground in front of and around stores. I don't often lean down to check if they are alive. Besides, we are talking about a span of 2 minutes before someone knew something was wrong, not the course of a day. I would have to see the video to make judgments on what happened. Did people see the woman collapse and not offer aid? All sorts of questions are raised.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:42 am

Steamwalker wrote:
anniemcu wrote:
Steamwalker wrote:I've seen familiar phenomenon as well. You ever been in a line at the movie theater and one line has a bunch of people and another has no one in it? People will often go to the back of a long line rather than to the empty one, especially if they see others going to the long line. It's an amusing phenomenon to watch. In this case though, I have to agree with Aanvil that we don't know the entire story and it was possible that people weren't aware of the emergency.
Sorry... a woman is lying on the floor in the store, and not one person was concerned enough to check?? That's just way too far out there.
I've seen homeless people sleeping on the ground in front of and around stores. I don't often lean down to check if they are alive. Besides, we are talking about a span of 2 minutes before someone knew something was wrong, not the course of a day. Do you honestly believe that this would've happened if the person was laying in a pool of blood and/or calling for help?

I can honestly say that it wouldn't take me even 2 minutes to ask if she was OK. I find it extremely distressing that folks have come to accept people lying in the ailes of a store to be 'normal' enough to ignore the fact that most people wouldn't be lying in the aisle of the store if something wasn't terribly wrong! She wan't outside the store, she was inside. Not likely to be a sleeping homeless person.

Steamwalker · Post by **Steamwalker** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:46 am

On a related subject, some interesting reading from Wikipedia:

Good Samaritan Laws
Bystander Intervention

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 12:06 pm

Cranberry wrote:In our minds perhaps each of us secretely thinks WE would be the one to help the poor woman out. But I really do wonder if that would be the case. I hope none of us ever have to find out first-hand, but chances are somebody will.

I know exactly what you mean and have wondered about this many times. I can say that I have never really been tried. It frightens me to think that I may not pass the test when I am. There have been a couple of small situations that I did not like my behavior in, and I believe my thinking about those has helped me do better in other small situations. So I can only hope that maybe it will help me in big situations as well. But you are right, I don't think you can really know for sure what you would do. Or at least, some of us cannot know for sure.

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 12:39 pm

Even if it looked like a bad or potentially dangerous situation to get involved in, what I find unforgiveable is that no one dialed 911.

That's what you're supposed to do when you see a bad or potentially dangerous situation.

I wasn't there, but in my mind I cannot come up with a circumstance in which stepping outside the store and calling 911 on a cell phone would be a bad or even uncomfortable thing.

The decision to do nothing at all is still a decision, and sometimes it's the worst possible decision of all that you can make.

And it still has consequences.

The people who didn't help her now have to spend the rest of their lives knowing that someone died in part because they chose not to act. In my own ethical code, that makes them share responsibility for her death along with the person who stabbed her: in effect, they are all now murderers.

--James

Aanvil · Post by **Aanvil** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 12:54 pm

^^^ I probably killed a bunch of people then by now.

Steamwalker · Post by **Steamwalker** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 12:59 pm

Hindsight is 20/20. If we were omniscient, we'd all be heroes.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 12:59 pm

Cynth wrote:
Cranberry wrote:In our minds perhaps each of us secretely thinks WE would be the one to help the poor woman out. But I really do wonder if that would be the case. I hope none of us ever have to find out first-hand, but chances are somebody will.
I know exactly what you mean and have wondered about this many times. I can say that I have never really been tried. It frightens me to think that I may not pass the test when I am. There have been a couple of small situations that I did not like my behavior in, and I believe my thinking about those has helped me do better in other small situations. So I can only hope that maybe it will help me in big situations as well. But you are right, I don't think you can really know for sure what you would do. Or at least, some of us cannot know for sure.

I have a few times, and I can tell you, stressfull as it was, and as ungrateful as some can be, my heart, and my Karma know that I did the right thing. May you and all around you never have to find out if you would do more than jsut stand there or turn away.

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 1:04 pm

anniemcu wrote:
Cynth wrote:
Cranberry wrote:In our minds perhaps each of us secretely thinks WE would be the one to help the poor woman out. But I really do wonder if that would be the case. I hope none of us ever have to find out first-hand, but chances are somebody will.
I know exactly what you mean and have wondered about this many times. I can say that I have never really been tried. It frightens me to think that I may not pass the test when I am. There have been a couple of small situations that I did not like my behavior in, and I believe my thinking about those has helped me do better in other small situations. So I can only hope that maybe it will help me in big situations as well. But you are right, I don't think you can really know for sure what you would do. Or at least, some of us cannot know for sure.
I have a few times, and I can tell you, stressfull as it was, and as ungrateful as some can be, my heart, and my Karma know that I did the right thing. May you and all around you never have to find out if you would do more than jsut stand there or turn away.

I know. I feel very lucky that I haven't seen the things many people have or haven't had to deal with the situations others have encountered.

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:39 pm

I wish I could remember the case...come on...help me out here...it was back in the 60s, in NYC, about thirty apartment dwellers listened to a woman in the alley below be raped and killed, a time span of thirty minutes or so, and NO ONE called the police or came to her aid until after it was over, in spite of her screams for help. Supposedly that's when studies began of this tendency of "groups" not offering help, and the findings that if there's just one other person, they usually DO help.

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:49 pm

The woman killed was Kitty Genovese---I hope I have the spelling right. It was a huge story. That is what I am finding puzzling about this story. I am finding little about it anywhere.

Steamwalker · Post by **Steamwalker** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 9:00 pm

Check out the Bystander link I posted above, it provides a little info about the Kitty Genovese case.

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 9:08 pm

Here's an article that talks about it and the "Kitty Genovese Syndrome"

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_kill ... ese/1.html

from the above article-

One dynamic brought forth was the Bystander Effect. This theory speculates that as the “number of bystanders increases, the likelihood of any one bystander helping another decreases.” As a result, additional time will pass before anyone seeks outside help for a person in distress. Another hypothesis is something called the Diffusion of Responsibility. This is simply a decrease in the feeling of personal responsibility one feels when in the presence of many other people. The greater the number of bystanders, the less responsibility the individual feels. In cases where there are many people present during an emergency, it becomes much more likely that any one individual will simply do nothing.