People suck: Shoppers STEP OVER Dying Woman in Kansas

And some here wonder why I and others get so *very pissed at the extraordinary insensitivity demonstrated here by too many,
with a total disregard for others' well being.

This is obviously worse, but clearly in the same inhumane vein--
at LEAST they can't YET show the damn video
or the PICTURE someone actually took instead of using the cell phone to call for HELP --- !!!
I really hope that lowlife is charged with (something, anything...).

That'll be next of course, on ABC or YouTube,
for those of you who not only don't get enough *real non-consensual torture

...but then can't wait to see snuff films. At least I hope *these people don't number more than... Hell, even one or two is too many. 🙁

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/kansas...n/20070704052209990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

Kansas Shoppers Step Over Dying Woman
By ROXANA HEGEMAN,

AP
Posted: 2007-07-04 09:37:01
Filed Under: Crime News, Nation
WICHITA, Kan. (July 4) - As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said.

The June 23 situation, captured on the store's surveillance video, got scant news coverage until a columnist for The Wichita Eagle disclosed the existence of the video and its contents Tuesday.

Police have refused to release the video, saying it is part of their investigation.

"It was tragic to watch," police spokesman Gordon Bassham said Tuesday. "The fact that people were more interested in taking a picture with a cell phone and shopping for snacks rather than helping this innocent young woman is, frankly, revolting."

The woman was stabbed during an altercation that was not part of a robbery, Bassham said. It took about two minutes for someone to call 911, he said.

Calloway, 27, died later at a hospital.

Two suspects have been arrested. A 19-year-old woman was charged with first-degree murder. Another suspect who turned himself in had not been charged as of Tuesday, the Sedgwick County prosecutor's office said.

The district attorney's office will have to decide whether any of the shoppers could be charged, Bassham said.

It was uncertain what law, if any, would be applicable. A state statute for failure to render aid refers only to victims of a car accident.

Eagle columnist Mark McCormick told The Associated Press he learned about the video when he called Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams to inquire about a phone call he had received from a reader complaining about a Police Department policy that requires emergency medical personnel to wait until police secure a crime scene before rendering aid. McCormick said Williams then unloaded on him about the shoppers in the stabbing case.

"This is just appalling," Williams told the newspaper. "I could continue shopping and not render aid and then take time out to take a picture? That's crazy. What happened to our respect for life?"

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2007-07-04 05:29:17

Good God..

It's horrible, but it's human nature. Psychologists discovered this and many other unsavory aspect of our character in the 1940s and 50s, when they were trying to understand why the German people permitted the Holocaust and the rise of Naziism.

Basically any time humans gather in groups they tend to respond this way to any crisis that doesn't threaten them directly: they wait to see if someone else stops to do anything about it, and if no one does they will often just ignore it, telling themselves that it's someone else's business.

I hope there is a special place in hell for everyone who stepped over her and took pictures instead of helping or calling 911! I'm glad they caught the scum who thought it was okay to take a human life too! Scumbags--all of them!!!!!!!1

That is terrible. Absolutely horrible and appalling. Where was their humanity? I hope the people get charged for not helping like they should have.

!!!!!!!!!!!

What the .....??????? I don`t even know how to respond to this.What animals!!! Unbelievable!!!

Words fail me.....

ticklingnemesis said:

That is terrible. Absolutely horrible and appalling. Where was their humanity? I hope the people get charged for not helping like they should have.

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They won't. There is no law anywhere requiring people to help someone else in trouble. In fact some states have had to pass "good Samaritan laws" to protect people who DO stop to help from being sued by the people they're trying to assist.

I can never stress this enough. we live in a sick world full of maggots.

People do suck! No wonder I have such an intense hatred of our species!

Absolutely horrible; beyond words to describe.

This reminds me of another incident I learned about. It's not recent; it happened in the 70s.. i think. A woman was robbed and shot coming off of the train in Long Island and people heard it and saw from their windows. Not one person called the police. Anybody know of this incident?

In fact some states have had to pass "good Samaritan laws" to protect people who DO stop to help from being sued by the people they're trying to assist. - Redmage

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Redmage makes a good point. We live in a world where everything is micromanaged and responsibility has taken on punitive connotations. Many times people don't find out they can get in trouble for stepping into situations until they're arrrested or charged for violating codes they didn't know existed. You could get in MORE trouble for trying to do the right thing because you aren't authorized or legally entitled to make a decision with any authority to interfere in someone else's affairs, even if you may be morally right for doing so.

There's other less-selfish concerns at play as well. You could come in late to the attack and be helping the wrong side. Or, as people in big cities have learned, getting involved could get you beaten even worse than the original victim, or get you busted if you use more force than other people think is necessary; there's gratitude for you. Not to mention the fact that sometimes lending a hand could get you introuble with some dangerous characters who could hurt you in reprisal.

And finally, let's not forget the most annoying-but-true consequence of rendering assistance: inconvenience. If someone gets beaten up or stabbed or shot while you're shopping and you help out, you'll have to wait around until the police and paramedics show up, be questioned, get taken down to HQ for more questions, and the trial and legal issues will interfere with your schedule and job, which could affect your rent and living situation. Some people might argue--and not incorrectly so--that staying out of it could spare you months and months of bothersome minutiae and legal proceedings, in which you might actually get in trouble if something goes wrong that isn't even your fault.

So in short, helping someone out could wedge you in a rock and a hard place with the villains AND the law, whereas minding your own business will only cost you your conscience, but allow you to keep your freedom, health and life.

On a fictional note, there's an EXCELLENT short story by Harlan Ellison on this subject called "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" which HAD to be an influence on Stephen King's "Children of the Corn". Check it out some time.

ticklingnemesis said:

That is terrible. Absolutely horrible and appalling. Where was their humanity? I hope the people get charged for not helping like they should have.

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I've read other stories with crap like that. Two times in Reader's Digest (I think in their "Everyday Heroes" article or whatever it's called), someone was in trouble and whole crowds of people just watched, except for maybe ONE person helping the victim.

First time I read something like that was when a woman wrote about how in one city, she was attacked and almost raped--while people on the street WATCHED AND DID NOTHING! Except for one guy who was driving by, got out of his car, and --I don't quite remember how he managed it--got the woman and himself into his car and drove to saftey.

The second one I read about was when someone pushed --I think a guy--onto the tracks at a subway station. Again, NO ONE HELPED, except ONE person, who managed to pull him back up onto the platform, just seconds before the train would've squashed him (or rammed him....whichever..either way, he'd have been dead).

Amnesiac said:

So in short, helping someone out could wedge you in a rock and a hard place with the villains AND the law, whereas minding your own business will only cost you your conscience, but allow you to keep your freedom, health and life.

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I think I would've taken my chances helping out; I couldn't bear my conscience if I didn't. I rember being about 12 when the local bully was beating up on some girl. I stopped to ask him why he was hitting her; I was rewarded by being shoved in the middle of a high-traffic street, during a red light, but he stopped hitting her. She didn't even say thank you for it either! But I can't stand around letting horrible things happen to people; if I'm wrong I'll let God sort it all out!

I hope I'm never in a situation where I have to find out what I'd do in it. Even still, I hope to never be in a situation where I'm in distress and a crowd just looks and does nothing to help because they're worried about reprisal or some frivilous lawsuit.

When I was 14 I had the shit kicked out of me on a Saturday afternoon in front of a supermarket in the middle of a fairly busy town centre. I had already been fighting with another lad for a while when some of his mates saw us and jumped in for him. One of them hit me a few times with a bike chain, and I've got a three-inch scar on my forehead where the chain tore a lump out of me. The whole thing lasted a good five or ten minutes from the time I started fighting with the one lad to the time his mates got worried by the sight of masses of blood pouring out of my head and ran off. During that time at least one hundred people must've walked past us and not one so much as tried to split us up. One bloke even hopped dutifully out of the way so I could get a run up to kick the poor lad I was fighting in the head. After it was over I picked myself up and staggered home with the entire front of me covered in blood, on a two-mile walk through a busy town centre. Have a guess how many people stopped to see if I was okay. I've also been mugged in the middle of a railway station concourse as people filed past, beaten someone unconscious outside a nightclub in the city centre as bouncers, clubbers and community wardens stood there watching and laughing, and seen a video of a man lying half-dead at the side of a main road after being attacked with cars swerving around him.

I find it strange that stories like this shock people. The world is full of rats, maggots and shaved monkeys, which is why the wise folk always tell you to do the decent thing yourself, because if you don't do it you can bet that nobody else will 😀

JimmyBoy said:

Absolutely horrible; beyond words to describe.

This reminds me of another incident I learned about. It's not recent; it happened in the 70s.. i think. A woman was robbed and shot coming off of the train in Long Island and people heard it and saw from their windows. Not one person called the police. Anybody know of this incident?

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I assume you're talking about Kitty Genovese, which is always used as the classic example of citizen in-action in response to crime. It took place in Queens New York in the 60s. The initial reporting of the incident was inaccurate and misleading, as people who supposedly had witnessed the crime had not witnessed it at all.

CitY of MicA said:

I assume you're talking about Kitty Genovese, which is always used as the classic example of citizen in-action in response to crime. It took place in Queens New York in the 60s. The initial reporting of the incident was inaccurate and misleading, as people who supposedly had witnessed the crime had not witnessed it at all.

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Glad someone mentioned Genovese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

Read the whole thing, but from the same page, decent thoughts on prevention:

"To counter the bystander effect when you are the victim, a studied recommendation is to pick a specific person in the crowd to appeal to for help rather than appealing to the larger group generally. If you are the only person reacting to an emergency, point directly to a specific bystander and give them a specific task such as, "You. Call 911." These steps place all responsibility on a specific person instead of allowing it to diffuse. Furthermore, pluralistic ignorance is countered by the implication that all bystanders are indeed interested in helping, and social proof kicks in when one or more of the crowd steps in to assist."

you're not in Kansas anymore

Once in middle school I tripped while going down the steps that led to the gymnasium and tumbled to the bottom and lay there bleeding (nothing broken, but I was pretty torn up, the stairs were made of concrete). Everyone stepped over me and kept going because they didn't want to be late for gym. I recall hearing one voice saying "Someone help her, she's hurt" but when I was able to look around I was all alone. Maybe if I had been pretty or popular someone would have cared. *shrug* (It actually didn't end there and it wasn't just the kids; I dragged myself to the office and tried to get someone's attention. There was one secretary there, on the phone, and she looked up and saw me. I was literally dripping blood on the floor, it was extremely obvious I was injured; but she didn't speak to me until she was done with her phone conversation many minutes later. I'll never forget that day and how cold everyone was.)

Anyways, yeah. It's unbelievable but that's just how it happens sometimes.

Is it against the law to call 911?

How hard is it to call the police and tell them someone was stabbed?

locker669 said:

How hard is it to call the police and tell them someone was stabbed?

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Easier than most people think. the thing is, in a group like that everyone convinces himself that someone else is just about to do what needs to be done.

locker669 said:

How hard is it to call the police and tell them someone was stabbed?

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When police interviewed witnesses to the Kitty Genovese murder, asking them why they didn't call the police, nearly every one of them answered something to the effect of, "With so many people watching, I assumed someone else had already done it." The witnesses in this situation had the added disadvantage of seeing other bystanders only at a distance.

Sparky: that really sucks. I'm sorry that that happened to you. 🙁 The advice Capnmad quoted about singling out one individual and asking for assistance is good, but when you add all the dynamics of social status in a middle school environment, I'm not sure what it would've taken for your situation to have come out good.

LindyHopper said:

When police interviewed witnesses to the Kitty Genovese murder, asking them why they didn't call the police, nearly every one of them answered something to the effect of, "With so many people watching, I assumed someone else had already done it." The witnesses in this situation had the added disadvantage of seeing other bystanders only at a distance.

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In the case from the OP I expect many bystanders told themselves that surely one of the store's employees had already called it in, or would soon.

Of course that's just a rationalization, not an excuse. The police would surely rather get multiple calls in such a situation than none at all. But most people look for rationalizations at a time like that.

Weren't there sociological studies on this phenomenon back in the 50s? In any case, there's always the Bible. The reason we talk about "good Samaritans" is because of Jesus's parable in which one person after another walked past an injured man by the side of a road until finally a man from Samaria stopped to help. Clearly folks have known about this nasty side of human nature for a very long time.