March 13th 1964, Kew Gardens, Queens, New York
It was around 3:15 A.M. when Catherine "Kitty" Genovese had arrived home work. As she was locking her car she noticed a man standing in between her and her apartment which was approximately 100 yards away. Instead of heading towards her apartment she decided to head to the nearest police call box just down the street. She never made it to that police call box. The man standing in her path had followed her and overcame her, stabbing her in the back twice. Kitty called out "oh my God, he stabbed me. Please help me! Please help me!" Not long after her scream for help a light came on in a nearby apartment building and a man opened the window and called down "let that girl alone." This deterred her attacker, but only for a minute. As Kitty rounded the corner to her apartment the man was waiting for her where he began stabbing her again. Once again she cried out for help, "I'm dying! I'm dying!" This time lights came on and the windows were opened in several apartments which startled her assailant. He got into his car and drove away. Kitty had managed to crawl to the back of her apartment building and make it in to the stairwell before her attacker returned to finish the job he had started. It was at 3:50 A.M. that the police received the first phone call regarding the attack of Kitty Genovese. They arrived two minutes later only to find her dead.
After completing the investigation the police concluded that there were no less than thirty eight victims who either saw or heard this attack. The police also stressed that had someone made a phone call, from the safety of their home, when the first attack had taken place Kitty might still be alive. Instead her attacker was given three chances within a thirty five minute span to kill his victim and he ultimately succeeded. The Kitty Genovese murder has gone down in history as well as in psychology. In 1968, four years after the gruesome murder of Kitty Genovese, a study produced results which were coined "Genovese Syndrome" or the bystander effect. This study found that the more people that were present the less likely there were to help a person in distress. They say the reasoning for the bystander effect is the diffusion of responsibility; since other people are present there is less pressure on them to take action; and a need to behave in a socially acceptable manner; because no one else is taking action they perceive it to be unnecessary or inappropriate.
Some things never change. Just last week, a little over 46 years later, a man was stabbed to death in Queens, New York, in broad daylight. As the man approached a woman being attacked, the attacker turned and stabbed him. Shortly after, the woman and attacker took off running in different directions as the man collapsed face down. As seen on a surveillance camera, it was not more than a couple minutes after his collapse that a steady stream of people began walking past him without helping. One man took a picture of him on his cell phone, while another shook him as if to wake him up. But the man lay there dying, in a pool of his blood, for nearly an hour and a half before authorities were notified and arrived on the scene. At this point it was too little, too late.
I am amazed and saddened by people's indifference. I could not imagine walking past someone who lay there dying, in a pool of blood, and not helping them or calling for help. What is this world coming to?
After reading your story, I was amazed. In this day an age, where you don't have to run to a pay phone and almost everyone has a cell phone on the, and no one called the cops or an ambulance for this man. What were this people thinking that pasted him? What did the man who shook him think?
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