Okay, dusting off the soapbox again. I've found something else to rant about. Be prepared.
How is this acceptable? Not the assault, but the fact that people recorded the incident on their phones but did NOTHING to stop it, to call the cops, or in any way do something to help the victim. All they were interested in was getting it uploaded to social media. (Beware watching the video. It's brutal.)
I wasn't really aware of this other than in passing until Himself actually pulled up an article on it. Apparently the attacker is now in jail in Salem under a $35,000 full cash bond. I can't find the article he was looking at that talks about this. She ended up turning herself in.
Himself made the comment of “I don't want to live on the planet anymore”. Honestly, I can't disagree with him on that point. What the hell are people thinking, watching a young woman get beaten – to death for all they know at the start – and all they do is pull out their camera phones and start recording? How is that even allowable in our society?
Where did the compassion go? I can understand not wanting to get involved in the fight, but surely there were a few strong young men there who could have helped pull her off. Maybe someone could have called the cops instead of leaving the woman to find her own way to get help. What about the danger the woman's two year old was in. I'm so sick to my stomach about this that I don't even know what to say.
I think what happened to the victim was horrendous. I think what the onlookers did was despicable. I can honestly say I wouldn't have gone in to rescue the woman. I'm not that strong and I'm a little afraid of physical violence. But I would have called 911. I wouldn't have stood there with my phone out recording the whole thing. Why do young people – and probably some not so young people – this this is right?
Something else I found in one of the articles I read made the comment that the Salem police were contemplating criminal charges against the onlookers but the subject was dropped by the prosecutors. Why? Aren't they as guilty of a crime as the woman's attacker? I think they'd be accused of being accessories to it because they did nothing to help.
I'm not being very coherent here other than saying “why is this a thing” and “why is this happening”, so I'm going to step off the soapbox now. But seriously, this just pissed me off and made me lose all faith in humanity.
No really. WHY IS SOMETHING LIKE THIS CONSIDERED OKAY?
It's absolutely not okay, but I can't agree with charging the onlookers, no matter how horrendous their behavior. If you charge the whole group, you can't tell who didn't step in because they feared for their own safety or maybe they had small children to protect or something.
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