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woman attacked on subway platform, workers basically do nothing

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by jps, Apr 13, 2009.

  1. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    How is that incomprehensible? I don't know her from dick. Is she a cop?
     
  2. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    She's posted about her past on here before, poin.

    Anyway, this isn't about what jps or sc or anyone else would do. It's about general expectations for a general person. And in that situation, following protocol is the best thing to do. Period.
     
  3. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    But, as Meat said, it's one thing to say you're going to do it when you're envisioning yourself in the situation. It's quite another to BE in that situation -- which can have a ton of variables that may or may not preclude you from doing what you think you would do if you were in someone's shoes.

    The reality is, you don't have a clue what you'd do. I don't either.

    Because, chances are, if we were in that situation something about it would be different. Maybe you see something that freezes you. Maybe you want to yell but nothing comes out. Or maybe it's over in a split-second and you just don't have time to do anything.

    You. Don't. Know.
     
  4. Smash Williams

    Smash Williams Well-Known Member

    Something that struck me about her asking why they didn't use the PA system - I would have been scared to use the PA system for fear that it would let the rapist know people were on to him, and that would cause him to kill her to eliminate the best eyewitness. They probably didn't know if he was armed - if he had a gun, they approached him, and he starts shooting everyone, is it their fault for startling him? Can you blame them for not wanting to test that what if?

    I don't know what I would have done. But there are so many what ifs either way in a situation like this that, as long as the guys did alert the police somehow, I can't fault them for not doing something else.

    It's a horrible situation to be caught it, and I don't think a blanket condemnation is fair.
     
  5. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Following protocol ended with a woman raped while two people who could have tried to stop it didn't. It got the cops there after the rapist finished raping her and was gone. That part was predictable to anyone working in a subway booth at 3 a.m. along the G line. The rapist has never been caught. I think the woman has a compelling story about why she disagrees that following protocol was the best thing to do. I'll agree to disagree with you -- because yeah, the people who could have tried to help and didn't might have been putting themselves at risk -- but given what happened, and what might have been prevented, I think the actions they took hardly qualify as the best thing to have done, "period." At BEST, it is murky, and I don't see how anyone reads her story and doesn't say, "What if?"
     
  6. Protocol is NOT what caused this woman to be raped. Yeah there is a lot of what if. Still don't mean what the MTA guys did was wrong, or incorrect.
     
  7. Smash Williams

    Smash Williams Well-Known Member

    Ragu - it's not just about putting themselves at risk. Approaching the situation might have put her at risk. It's a horrible, horrible question to have to ask, but would you rather the MTA guys stop the rapist if he ends up killing her because of their interruption?

    The woman has a heart-wrenching case, no doubt. But there isn't a clear correlation between the MTA workers taking more aggressive action to stop the rape and everything working out for the better for the woman involved.
     
  8. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Smash, She was at risk. The guy in the booth saw a woman being dragged away from him and down the stairs as she cried to him for help. That was all he knew. You are the one assigning motives to them that have no basis in any reality.

    He didn't make a calculated decision, other than the one to not intervene. For all he knew she was raped, beaten, shot on the platform, tossed in front of a subway train. All he ever saw was a woman crying for help and being dragged down the stairs. And he made the decision not to get involved. You really think someone in that situation is saying to himself, "I had better not get involved, because her fate will be better if I don't?" Come on. For all he knows she was raped and beaten to a pulp while he sat safely in his bullet proof booth.

    I didn't say there is a "clear correlation" between anything. I questioned how anyone witnesses what those two people saw and doesn't actively try to help her. Maybe they both end up dead, if they do. And I still can't believe that a conductor pulled into the station -- and obviously saw her being raped, because he hit the call button -- and actually closed the train doors and pulled his train out of the station, leaving her to be raped at best, and murdered afterward, at worst. He had no clue what happened to her, or was going to happen to her, because he made the decision to close the doors and leave her there. I can't tell you exactly what he was thinking, but I would be willing to bet he didn't think he was acting in her best interests.
     
  9. StaggerLee

    StaggerLee Well-Known Member

    But he did intervene. He called the cops (or pressed a button to call the cops). People are acting like he just sat there, acknowledged someone was being attacked and then went back to filling out the daily crossword puzzle in the soon to be extinct newspaper.

    Whether he intervened enough is debatable, but it's not like the person in the booth just completely ignored the situation, as some posters on here are making it sound.
     
  10. I have asked you this before: How did they not intervene? Calling for help is intervention.
    They did get involved. Obviously not to your satisfaction, but they DID get involved.
     
  11. jps

    jps Active Member

    I guess that's what it comes down to, evil. some are ok with what they did while others - like ragu and I - consider pushing the button the bare minimum. so, yes, they did do something. but, in our minds, they should have done more. (at least mine -- don't mean to speak for ragu, but just think we're coming at this from the same direction.)
     
  12. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Pushing the call button is not intervening. Intervening would have been actively trying to help her.

    It was past 3 a.m. on the G line, which is the most remote line in the NYC subway system. I live on the NYC subway system, and I have gotten on the G train exactly once in my life that I can remember. It runs between Brooklyn and Queens--never touches Manhattan--and at that time of the morning it is going to be desolate. Any transit worker knows to hit the call button when someone needs help, but the thing I can guarantee you (unlike whether they would have been harmed if they had tried to help) is that they hit those buttons knowing that the cops were likely not going to be there immediately. Not where she was at that time of the day.
     
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