There’s this new horror movie out. It’s about a woman who is raped on a train for 40 minutes while bystanders record it with their phones.
No one intervenes. No one helps her.
But this is not a horror movie. This is what happened on a Philadelphia train on October 13th. People on the train watched as the attacker groped the victim and eventually raped her through TWO DOZEN TRAIN STOPS. At this time, police believe that no one called the authorities.
Flashback:
In the early hours of March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese, a 28-year-old bartender, was stabbed and raped by Winston Mosely outside the apartment building where she lived in Queens. Thirty-eight witnesses saw or heard the attack, and none of them called the police or came to her aid. The incident prompted inquiries into what became known as the bystander syndrome, or “Genovese syndrome.”
What Kitty and the poor woman on the train went through haunts me, and I don’t say that easily. And I can’t help but wonder what was going through the minds of the people who either ignored what they were watching or worse, recorded it. I have a few theories, all of which are probably wrong. But since Malcolm Gladwell is not available right now, I’ll take a stab at it:
Fear. Were they afraid of the man? The situation? Of becoming victims themselves? Did it not occur to them that they could all rush to her aid as one strong unit?
Idiocy. Were they the dumbest people on the face of the Earth all riding the same train at the same time?
Lack of empathy. Did they simply not care? Were they so far mired down into the pain of their own lives that they simply didn’t care as a fellow human being was being brutalized?
Sadism. Did they enjoy watching it? Did they get some kind of a sick thrill watching this poor woman suffer?
Bystander effect. The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, is a theory that states that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when there are other people present. Would this poor woman have had a better chance of intervention if there was only one other person in the train car besides her and the attacker?
Psychotic disorders. Much like what has been said about Adam Lanza, the killer responsible for the Sandy Hook massacre of twenty children, were the people on this train unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality? Did they think they were watching a video game? An Instagram post? A hologram? An SNL skit? What are the odds all of these people had the same disorder?
The scariest part? These people aren’t monsters. They’re just people, like you and me. It’d be easier if we could call them sociopathic. But they’re just people. Flawed people who will have to live with their inaction for the rest of their lives.
Let me suggest the exposition if this was a horror movie. The bystanders, after being questioned by the police, all go home to their respective lives. They are slightly ashamed of their behavior, but they move on. But each bystander finds that they are now being haunted by their worst fears. Every day they wake up, they have to face a different horror, a different villain. And each time they are tortured, brutalized and haunted, around them are people who simply stand around and watch.
No one intervenes. No one helps them. Day after day after day for the rest of their lives.
Seems only fair.