The spirit of Kitty Genovese remains very much a part of New York, and it’s good to know that our courts stand behind it. From MSNBC’s Today People :
The young woman had been attacked in full view of a New York City subway clerk, then dragged down the steps onto a deserted platform where she was raped and raped again, the assailant not stopping even when a subway train pulled into the station.
Now, after nearly four years of constant nightmares, bouts of depression and anxiety, the woman has been told by a judge that two transit workers who saw her being attacked had no obligation to do anything to help her other than to signal their superiors that police were needed at the station.
Our government. It’s always there to help.
The former graduate student said she didn’t expect the ticket clerk to leave the safety of his booth or the conductor of the train that stopped at — and left — the station during her attack to jump off his train to aid her.
“He could have just gotten over the intercom and said, ‘Hey! Stop what you’re doing! I’ve called the cops!’ Anything like that would have helped,” she said. “He didn’t have to get out of the booth. I don’t expect him to be a police officer. But he could have definitely said something over the intercom, or perhaps having a quicker system of notifying the police would have been effective, too.”
The victim, known only as Maria, is being a bit too legally correct for my taste. A young woman is being raped before your eyes and two men did nothing. What if it was their daughter? What if was mine? Has there every been two bigger cowards, hiding inside their bulletproof booth and letting this happen?
At the civil trial, the judge who ruled for the MTA concluded that the clerk and conductor “had taken prompt and decisive action” in calling for help and had complied with work rules.
The MTA issued a statement that said, “It is important to note that while NYC Transit workers are trained to the highest degree of professionalism in their assigned jobs, they are not and should not be expected to perform in the capacity of law enforcement officers.”
The legal duty of government employees, “trained to the highest degree of professionalism” in handing out metrocards, is limited. After all, the city could be subject to massive liability if these welfare queens were expected to actually do something to help people in need. So the law has watered down their duty, as well as (here’s a big secret folks) the duty of police to actually do police type stuff (that’s right, they have no responsibility to actually protect anybody absent a “special duty” to a particular individual) as to make it essentially impossible to hold them accountable for being the cowards they are.
I’m sure that some will argue that these two transit employees, who watched as Maria was dragged and raped, were not suited to stop a rapist, who might have been armed, and might have been strong, and might have been angry, and might have been any number of other things that would put these two manly transit workers at risk. It’s true. There are risks in life. There are risks in doing the right thing for another human being. Or, one can save one’s own butt and hide in your bulletproof booth while a young woman gets raped. It’s definitely much safer for you to hide.
I’m not sure I can fault the judge for ruling the way he/she did. It’s likely legally correct. But I can slam the decision for its verbiage, “prompt and decisive action.” How about this ruling judge?
While it is painful and disgraceful that two men could hide in their bulletproof booth while a young woman was brutally raped before their eyes, and a horrific commentary on human nature that they cared far more for their own safety than to assume any risk to help another human being, I am constrained by the law to find for the defendant on the issue of liability because the law safeguards the interests of government over the harms done its citizens.
It’s bad enough that the two transit employee cowards lacked humanity. Was it necessary for the court to lack it as well?
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Why do you refer to “welfare queens”? Were the transit workers male or female? Are either of them receiving welfare assistance, to your knowledge? Were there any other passengers on the train or in the station? What is their obligation?
Some people can figure out the allusion and some make bricks look smart.
Would it have mattered that the rapist was bigger / stronger / whatever?
Stopping a rape is worth losing a job or even getting seriously injured. All they likely would have had to do was approach the guy and he would have stopped.
Of course, I’m of the mindset that law enforcement – at least of this nature – is everyone’s business even if it isn’t everyone’s full time job.
The MTA workers deserve a lifetime of ridcule and, if they have any, shame for failing to defend Maria.
A Graham,
Regardless of any .gov subsidies the two were getting, they certainly weren’t men.
Scott,
I still don’t understand how you can be against carrying firearms in light of these cases but that’s a different matter.
Just because I don’t like guns doesn’t mean that I think it’s fine for men to be cowards. Like you, if this happened in front of me, you can be your sweet life I’d do something to stop it. Risk my life? Maybe, but I would pray that there was a man around to risk his life if it was my daughter being raped. To tell you the truth, my darling wife, Dr. Simple Justice, would probably be one step ahead of me going after a rapist without a thought of her own safety. That’s just how we are.
And Shawn, don’t bother explaining anything to A Graham. If he doesn’t get it, he doesn’t get it.
Where were the transit police. Too few or off eating donuts somewhere should provide liability, unless there is somekind of governmental immunity.
I concur that perhaps the clerk didn’t have a legal responsibility, but I would have a hard time calling myself a man, should I have failed to act more affirmatively.
Ironically, and sadly, rider safety is usually what you hear the transit workers union yelling about every time the powers that be threaten to replace more clerks with machines. So much for that.
Unfortunately, there is almost no chance of police liability in New York either. Absent a “special duty” to protect any particular individual, no liability exists for the performance of their duty. Another prophylactic rule to cover government butt. But man, what a pair of cowards.
It is a sad thing our world has come to this, it would be in my opinion just COMMON DECENCY to help her. This is regardless of the city’s liability what has become of us were we only worry about liability and those people were nothing but cowards their actions prove that.