I couldn't remember the name, but I was just mentioning her case to my husband. People are acting like this type of behavior of just watching and doing nothing is new. It isn't.

When discussing this it was suggested perhaps sexual acts are so common on Mass Transit people didn't realize it was a rape. Consensual acts in public have become all too common.

I remember reading about it when it happened. So sad even now.

I watched a show on Discovery+ recently that said the account of people knowing her condition and not aiding her was inaccurate.

Any time that I have witnessed violence, I have been in such shock that I was essentially paralyzed. I do not consider that justification for arresting me and charging me with aiding and abetting.

At least this incident did not turn into a gun battle, injuring or possibly killing bystanders.

I do not judge people who are in a situation that I have not experienced.

arcy I believe I would be able to determine PDA where two people are into each other and the PDA consensual vs a non consensual, brutal rape. And forty minutes is a long time not to have a clue as a bystander, if it's a loving and caring embrace going on or not. Maybe I've watched a lot of romance flicks or just have a strong woman's intuition.

Lars, there is a difference from being paralyzed and whipping out one's phone and recording it which is what bfenton was saying.

More info about this

Pennsylvania law does now allow prosecution of witnesses for inaction - if it did, many witnesses would never come forward with evidence. This took place late at night, and I am not familiar with the particular neighborhood where it happened.

I remember the Kitty Genovese story and I certainly would help in such a situation,, even if it were only to call 911. But in this second situation, reports differ, and I'm not willing to castigate the alleged non intervention of the subway people unless I heard their account of what did or did not take place.

The DA for Delaware county said the incident on the Septa El did not include videotaping by other passengers. (ETA for clarity)

Yes, I remember the Kitty Genovese murder. Like C Marlin, I also read or heard something that said the story initially told was inaccurate.

I guess we can never be sure of much.

What we can be sure of is that this poor woman was raped for 40 minutes out in public.

Not snatched and dragged into an isolated alley, but in clear view of other people.

I listened to the press conference by the Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer. He's not denying the woman was assaulted, but how many people recorded it, essentially downplaying the number of bystanders using their cell phones. Nonetheless, the perp is being held on $180,000 bail and heard mentioned he was caught and arrested with his pants down by Septa authorities.

The Kitty Genovese story of popular imagination is false. There were people who tried to help:

The incident prompted inquiries into what became known as the bystander effect, or "Genovese syndrome", and the murder became a staple of U.S. psychology textbooks for the next four decades. However, researchers have since uncovered major inaccuracies in the New York Times article. Police interviews revealed that some witnesses had attempted to call the police.

Reporters at a competing news organization discovered in 1964 that the Times article was inconsistent with the facts, but they were unwilling at the time to challenge Times editor Abe Rosenthal. In 2007, an article in the American Psychologist found "no evidence for the presence of 38 witnesses, or that witnesses observed the murder, or that witnesses remained inactive". In 2016, the Times called its own reporting "flawed", stating that the original story "grossly exaggerated the number of witnesses and what they had perceived". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese?wprov=sfla1

Similarly, as cyn427 says, the reports of people watching and doing nothing on the SEPTA train also appear to be false or exaggerated.

ETA more, from a New Yorker piece that's behind a paywall:

The essential facts are these. Winston Moseley had been out in his car, looking for a victim, when he came across Genovese driving home from work. He followed her. She parked at the Kew Gardens train station, adjacent to her apartment. Moseley parked, too, and attacked her with a hunting knife. She screamed, and a man named Robert Mozer opened his window and shouted, “Leave that girl alone!” Moseley ran away. Genovese, wounded but not mortally, staggered to the back of her apartment building and went inside a vestibule. Moseley returned, found her, and attacked again, stabbing her and assaulting her sexually. He fled again before she died.

The Times story was inaccurate in a number of significant ways. There were two attacks, not three. Only a handful of people saw the first clearly and only one saw the second, because it took place indoors, within the vestibule. The reason there were two attacks was that Robert Mozer, far from being a “silent witness,” yelled at Moseley when he heard Genovese’s screams and drove him away. Two people called the police. When the ambulance arrived at the scene—precisely because neighbors had called for help—Genovese, still alive, lay in the arms of a neighbor named Sophia Farrar, who had courageously left her apartment to go to the crime scene, even though she had no way of knowing that the murderer had fled. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/10/a-call-for-help

Cyn427 is incorrect with her comment that it did not happen on a Septa train. For what it's worth the Delaware DA did not deny the incident happened on a Septa train.

I think someone can video, if they are with someone else who calls 911. It might be evidence to help the prosecution.

I've been in enough situations to know I would call 911. No doubt.

Thanks Bookwoman. I was just thinking the same thing. Years ago, I listened to a history podcast that corrected the false, yet common beliefs about that event.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

The incident happened on the El, which is an elevated subway ( an oxymoron if there ever was one). It’s part of the SEPTA transportation system, as are the buses. Most people think of the regional rail system as ” the train”. No matter, it was horrendous.

No, I was 2. I don't know what I would do especially if there were more than one person involved or they had a weapon. I would at the very least call 911, though.

I agree cyn427 that "we can never be sure of much".

Bookwoman in 2014 In an interview on NPR on March 3, 2014, Kevin Cook, author of Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime That Changed America, said:
Thirty-eight witnesses – that was the story that came from the police. And it really is what made the story stick. Over the course of many months of research, I wound up finding a document that was a collection of the first interviews. Oddly enough, there were 49 witnesses. I was puzzled by that until I added up the entries themselves. Some of them were interviews with two or three people [who] lived in the same apartment. I believe that some harried civil servant gave that number to the police commissioner who gave it to Rosenthal, and it entered the modern history of America after that.

I have not read the book by Kevin Cook, but wonder about the conclusions he may have drawn, beyond the perspective of Jim Rasenberger in the NY Times article.

I definitely remember the Kitty Genovese case. The rape on the train in Philly was horrendous. All these people videoing it, why didn't one person with a phone call 911.

News feed this morning states that police were wrong--nobody was videoing it.

Many years ago I witnessed three people being shot point blank about 20 feet in front of me. I ran. It has preyed on my mind that I might not know what to do when witnessing another situation. I recently listened to a seminar by Hollaback, detailing what one can do as a bystander when witnessing an assault. One thing they suggest is, if it can be done safely, documenting it with video. What I hadn't thought to consider is that it's important to capture the setting through street signs, time stamp, etc. Here is a brief summary of what they teach: https://www.ihollaback.org/bystander-resources/

pamike, sorry I was not clear. I know the incident happened on a Septa El; what I meant that DA said didn't happen was the videotaping. I will fix it.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer. The videos and lack of response were untrue.

)

The Delaware County district attorney said Thursday that it was "simply not true" that several SEPTA passengers last week took cellphone videos of a man raping a woman on the train instead of deciding to intervene or call police.

Responding to days of intense media coverage of the crime, Jack Stollsteimer, the county's top prosecutor, said it was incorrect for public officials or news outlets to suggest that groups of bystanders on the train were "callously sitting there filming and didn't act."

That notion had initially been advanced in the days after the incident, when some police and SEPTA officials expressed frustration over the lack of bystander intervention and said that passengers had appeared to point their phones in the direction of the attack. The story quickly generated outrage and became national news, with some reports quoting frightened passengers appalled by the apparent apathy.

Also from the Inquirer story:

He said he wanted to reassure members of the public that their neighbors hadn't sat idly by as a woman was attacked. He drew explicit comparisons to Kitty Genovese, the woman stabbed to death in Queens, N.Y., in 1964. Reporters at the time said that nearly 40 people heard but ignored Genovese's cries for help - a narrative that Stollsteimer pointed out was eventually debunked as an urban legend.

Jupidupi, how horrible. I am sure that unless my loved one were in danger, I’d be running as fast as I could. Of course, I am sure I would report it immediately however in the past that meant finding a phone, not always so easy. Remember that 911 didn’t exist not so long ago, so you had to know where you were and the local phone number for the police. It used to be printed on pay phones.

Jupidupi Thank you for sharing your experience and contributing the resource for bystander inventions with us. I can imagine how traumatized and helpless you felt to have to run for your life from the violence you witnessed! and understandably the self-help you sought to ease your mind.

Whether or not the original claims about the details of Kitty Genovese's were slightly exaggerated, by 1968, Genovese’s murder was already inspiring Good Samaritan Laws. Believe it or not, the 9-1-1 system came about as a direct result. It was first implemented in New York City in July of 1968.

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jasdip, you need a big hug. You totally deserve it!!!