“Madness is a rare thing in individuals – but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages it is the rule.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Just after 3 a.m., March 13, 1964 in New York City, Catherine Genovese, a 28-year old woman, was stabbed to death in a parking lot in front of her apartment complex. Catherine’s murder story could have drowned in the middle pages of most newspapers like many other crime stories, except that it didn’t.
Catherine’s murder wasn’t a quick, muffled death. It had been a long, loud, tortured, public event. The killer had chased and attacked her in the street three times over a period of thirty-five minutes before his knife finally silenced her cries for help.
Shockingly, thirty-eight people, all in the surrounding apartments, witnessed at least one of her killer’s three attacks from the safety of their apartment windows for 25 minutes without calling the police.
The story has since been thoroughly debunked, a case of sensational reporting, but at the time it was written it led to intense interest in the phenomenon from psychologists. Even if there is a ten percent truth to above story, it’s a baffling account of a crime, not because it was a murder, but because “good people” failed to call the police.
Why didn’t the neighbours help? Were they indifferent? Frightened? Why should they be afraid of calling the police from the safety of their own homes? Has the violence on TV and movies made people so insensitive? Was it the beginning of a new epidemic known as large scale social apathy?
Interview with the witnesses revealed none of these explanations was the real reason behind people’s inaction.
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