Butting in, and not in a feltching way...

Great Debates
1

The Public Pregancy got me a’thinkin. At what point do we, as members of a society (or as I like to refer to it, member of a herd,) intervene in other people’s lives? When a pregant woman orders a coffee? When she orders a vodka? When we hear a heated verbal fight between a husband and wife next door, or when we start hearing crashes during fights? There was a woman killed at a Radison here in Burlington a couple years back. The person in the next room heard the struggle of the woman being attacked, and KNOCKED ON THE WALL. The woman was screaming, and the witness did nothing.

At what point do you intervene, either yourself, or calling the police? And why are we so warey of doing this in our society?

2

“Let it alone; let it alone—
If you don’t know the people, jes’ let it alone.
Don’t go ‘round messin’ and puttin’ on airs—
Don’t stick your nose into other folks’ affairs.
If you don’t know, say so:
Mind your own business and let it alone!”

—Bert Williams

That having been said, be a LITTLE nosier than Kitty Geneovese’s neighbors!

3

The correct reply, I think, is (d) it all depends.

Bring the bar down to a lower level and consider this: if you are a mom faced with two squabbling children, when do you intervene? The answer is, it all depends. It depends on how old the children are, it depends on how they’re fighting (with words, or with sticks and stones), it depends on how long they’ve been going around and around, it depends on how ugly it is, it depends on how tired and fed-up you are, it depends on what the consequences might be if you simply did nothing.

In the Wide World, MYOB obtains in a big way, which is why the people in the room next door at the Radisson did nothing other than knock on the wall. Most of us are resigned to the unpleasant fact that for every time you call 911 and report excitedly, “I think a woman is being murdered next door!”, and the cops break down the door and find that, yes, a woman WAS being murdered and that you, by your timely phone call, have saved her life, there are going to be at least 20 times that the cops will break down the door and find–two people having really hot sex. Or a prostitute being paid to have “really hot sex”, and she won’t thank you for bringing her existence to the attention of Hotel Security. (Neither will the john.)

So we all learn the hard way to mind our own business, and sometimes that makes it difficult to tell when someone really does need intervention.

Sometimes, also, you try to help somebody and you get your head bitten off, or at best, you have a very strange experience. The woman you vaguely recognize from church whom you see wandering around the mall parking lot may not be looking for her car at all. She may have just found out that her husband is cheating on her; she may be bi-polar depressive and have just gone off her lithium; she may be looking for her son’s car so she can put a note in it telling him the Vietnamese girl he apparently “knew” in 1972 has turned up at the house, and did he know he had a son? If you go bustling self-importantly up to her and announce, “Hey, Mrs. Smith, your car’s over there!” at best you may get a “Gee–thanks…”, but at worst she may jump all over you, “mind your fing business you cs*ing ct…” Better just to say “hi” and let her tell you if she needs help.

Same thing for the husband and wife arguing–it’s more than likely that they’ll abandon their fight and gang up on YOU.

And then there’s the unpleasant fact of life that many people nowadays carry guns, and that criticism, no matter how constructive, may possibly be answered with a couple of .38 slugs to the chest. “MYOB, you SOB!”

See?

And as for telling a pregnant woman she shouldn’t drink coffee or vodka–well, sometimes pregnant women carry guns, too…

4

I have thought a lot about this myself, particularly after 2 incidents that happened 2 years ago.

I lived in an apartment across from a young couple who had an infant son. There were several times when I could hear the two loudly arguing, and finally the neighbor who lived below them called the police. The next day, the woman came over and told me not to worry about her, that her husband had pushed her in the heat of the moment(her chin was badly bruised), but that he would never hurt their son. I had no idea how to react. I ended up just talking to her about it, trying to figure out how abused she was, and if she was willing to get out. She swore it was the only time it had happened, and that it had scared her badly but that she honestly believed it wouldn’t happen again.

And that was it. I have often wondered what I should have done differently-- the bruise was the first and only indication I saw that their fights got violent as well as loud. I never did interfere myher request that I not call the police, and also out of pure chickenshittedness because her husband was so huge.

Later that same summer I was out playing mini golf, when a pickup veered onto the road outside the fence. The man & woman inside were screaming at each other, the woman punched the man in the face, and then the man grabbed the womn by the nape of the neck and slammed her head into the dashboard. Scared the hell out of me. The whole golfcourse froze, everyone staring, and when the truck sped off again, went back to playing. It was sickeningly surreal. In that case I fortunately had long enough to get the license plate number, and called it in.

I think we’re wary of getting involved, maybe out of fear that the violence will be turned against us. I also think that American society is getting increasingly splintered, so that the only people we actively look out for are people we know, and strangers stay strangers-- people to be feared and mistrusted. In general people just don’t want to stick their necks out.

5

From a psychological point of view, people are like sheep. Literally. We are herd animals, and if frightened, we revert to herd behavior.

Kitty Genevese, for instance. She was on the street when a man attacked her with a knife. He took her money and ran. Bleeding to death, she found a pay phone, dialed 0 and screamed: “Help me, help me, I’ve been stabbed, oh God, he’s gonna come back, help me!” Lights went on all over the neighborhood. No one opened their doors to let her in, no one went to her rescue. And sure enough, the killer came back after hearing her screams and finished her off. Police questioned 34 people later that admitted to watching her being attacked the second time, and did nothing. Did not scream “Stop, I’ve got a gun, leave her alone!” More than one person turned OFF the light, so they could watch the scene on the street better.

It’s the concencious of most social psychologists that if ONE person had gone to Kitty’s rescue, many others would have followed suit. It’s herd behavior. But don’t you think it’s something that if we recognize it in ourselves, it would do us well to pay attention to?

6

I used to be an assistant manager of a shopping mall in a Toronto Suburb. One day, during lunch, I was in the bookstore flipping through magazines when I heard a commotion out in the mall. I went out to see 3 adults arguing over a child (maybe 3 or 4 years old). The man (the child’s father) was in a tug of war with one woman (the child’s mother), the second woman was the maternal grandmother, but she was sided with the father. Anywho, this is the basic scenario of most child abductions, that is they’re abducted by a parent during a custody battle. There were at least 100 people in very close proximity to this scene, but nobody did anything even though it was a scene and the child was crying. The father finally picked up the boy and started moving towards an exit. I got in front of him and asked him what was going on. He said don’t worry, “it’s my son”. I told him I couldn’t make that call, and as we passed the information kiosk, I had them call security. The 3 adults and one child where taken to the management office and the police came to sort out the situation.

Once things got back to normal, the manager called me into his office and told me about the previous mall he had worked at. He said that a 6 year old girl had been abducted, by a friend of the family, it turned out. It was a harrowing experience for 2 or 3 days until the girls body was found. The manager told me the story and than just said “Thanks”.

Even without knowing about the previous abduction and murder, I wasn’t going let anything like that happen while I was around. I wonder how many people saw that little girl taken away and didn’t do anything because “it isn’t any of my business”.

Gee, I don’t think any of us expected him to say that.

7

What city was Kitty Genovese in when she was murdered?

If it was New York, I’d almost expect it.

8

A year or two ago, one of the news stations gave some tips as to how to intervene in a violent situation. I don’t have the cite but I can share some of the tips I remember.

Keep your distance! You won’t do anybody any good if you get killed yourself.

Call the police: It’s their job to handle violent situations.

Attract attention: blow your horn, scream and shout, make the scene as public as possible.

If any of the police officers (bluepony, etc.) reading this thread have additional advice, I would like to hear it.

There may have been other tips but I don’t recall them.

I would guess that if the people watching Kitty had merely stepped outside their doors, the attacker might have been deterred. Or not… We cannot prevent every act of evil in the world.

A book was written about the attack: “Thirty-Eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case” (ISBN: 0520215273).

No matter where you go, there you are.

9

I guess it’s more a question of, what would YOU do & when would you do it?

Around here if people make a lot of noise someone calls the cops, of course, I don’t.

If I see a man & a woman about arguing, I might stand between them & say & do nothing. That usually calms things down.

10

“What city was Kitty Genovese in when she was murdered? If it was New York, I’d almost expect it.”

—It was Brooklyn or Queens, I don’t remember, And yeah, we have a lot of trouble with that. Darnit, I can’t walk down the street without scores of people being stabbed and shot left and right, it’s really getting annoying. Tripping over bodies, slipping in blood. Gee, I really wish I lived someplace safe, like Oklahoma City or London or Petaluma, where no one EVER gets killed!

11

Several years ago, a female friend of mine got some upsetting news and came to my apartment. She screamed and yelled at me violently for a good twenty minutes, while I stood somewhat dumbounded and did/said nothing (the events that upset her had nothing to do with me at all).

My neighbor called the police, and told them that I was beating my girlfriend. They came to the door and questioned me–generally being very professional about the whole thing, but it was clear that they thought I was being abusive. They finally left when my friend explained to them that it was, in fact, she that was making the fuss, not I.

Although this was an unpleasant experience, I have to say that I would rather go through the mild humiliation of being suspected of abusive behavior and know that my neighbors are caring (albeit perhaps quick to judgement) people willing to act if they feel it necessary, than to have someone I care about suffer unnecessary harm because people “don’t want to get involved”.

My only regret is that my neighbors never learned the real circumstances and never treated me in a friendly way again.

12

I was sitting at home once…in my boxers on the couch, when I heard a loud crash…obviously the sound of a car accident. I sat for a moment, and decided that since it was late at night, I should maybe go make sure that someone was there, and had called to police. So I got up, got dressed, and drove about 1/4 of a mile to the accident. While one driver was out of his car, and had several people around him, the other car was just sitting in the middle of the street. I went over, and the elderly lady inside had no idea what had happened, nobody had checked to make sure she was allright, or anything. I check her pulse, made sure she wasn’t gushing blood, or had any sharp pains, and took a few moments to re-assure her. About that time the police showed up, so I told her she’s be fine, and got back in my car and drove home. Now in the 10 minutes or so it took me to get there, nobody checked on this lady, if she had been injured, that time could have been the differance between her living and dying. People sometimes disappoint me so much…