Shades of Kitty Genovese
April 8, 2009
by Sheryl Lee
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A 22 year old woman was violently attacked and raped in a New York City subway station in 2005, and city employees who witnessed the incident, which went on for over twenty minutes, did nothing to intervene.
The Today Show reports:
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.
The young woman, identified as “Maria”, has said she didn’t expect the subway employees who witnessed the attack — a ticket clerk and a conductor — to compromise their own safety to physically intervene, but that they could have used the intercom to communicate to her attacker that the attack had been witnessed and the police had been called.
“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.”
Maria, a graduate student at the time of the attack, found she was unable to continue her studies after the incident. She was plagued by PTSD and anxiety attacks, forcing her to drop out of school. Today, she blames the onlookers who didn’t intervene more than she blames her attacker, because he was obviously mentally ill, while the subway employees were in possession of a moral conscience, but chose to do nothing to help her.
She will appeal the ruling on her case.
this was hard to watch. Bravo to the very brave Maria for speaking out!!!!
I disagree with Maria’s assessment of the attacker.
He had enough awareness that what he was doing was wrong to threaten her with death if she didn’t stop screaming.
(She’s correct that he has “no conscience” though I suspect what she really means is that he has no empathy for the suffering of his victims)
It is intensely disturbing that the MTA is paying its lawyers to deny Maria her claim. The safety of the community is at stake, but instead of owning up to its shortcomings, and making public plans to correct them, the MTA is baldly denying that it could and should have done more in this case. It therefore is to be assumed that in future similar cases, it will also do as little.
Thank you to Maria for speaking out, a courageous act, and to the Today Show for featuring her story.
Action Suggestion:
1. Can TNA invite both Maria and Today Show personnel to the Violence Against Women forum in New York City on Saturday, April 18, 2009?
2. Perhaps the judge in Maria’s case and the NY Metropolitan Transit Authority CEO and other high level officials should be invited as well so they can understand why their lack of training of their workers to respond in a human way is so damaging. . . .
Scott, I agree with your comments about the MTA. Their behavior is disturbing.
me, a 115 pound woman, would have been outside of that glass cage and physically intervening AND going over the loudspeaker. This is ridiculous and disturbing and indicative of men’s actual beliefs. This is misogyny in action. Men proclaim themselves to be “protectors” to justify their violence but watch rape porn and stand by while women are raped because its just too much for them to be asked of. She’s not their wife.
plus i think if it were a small man getting beaten the men would be over there intervening. But when it’ sa woman: “not my business”
Queens Supreme Court Justice Kevin Kerrigan threw out the suit of Maria, the young woman brutally raped in a Queens subway station. Her suit was against two transit workers (toll booth clerk John Koort, and train conductor Harmodio Cruz) who ignored her cries for help for over 20 minutes and the MTA.
Quote from Scott Rose above:
ACTION PLAN:
1. Write to H. Dale Hemmerdinger Chairman, MTA and Elliot G. Sander, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, MTA. Both of these guys could learn a lot about violence against women.
Here is a comment form (unable to locate the their emails): http://mta-nyc.custhelp.com/cg.....er/ask.php
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