History Spotlight, 3/13

On March 13, 1964, over a several hour period in New York City's Greenwich Village, Kitty Genovese is attacked by an assailant three different times and is ultimately murdered. The original story is that 38 different people witnessed the murder and none of them called the police because they "didn't want to get involved." The reality is somewhat more complex.
At about 3 AM, Kitty Genovese was walking home from her job as a manager of a bar when she noticed she was being followed. She started to run, but her attacker, one Winston Moseley, quickly overtook her and stabbed her twice in the back. She screamed "Oh my God, he stabbed me!" and Moseley ran away when a neighbor shouted, "Let that girl alone!" There were several other neighbors who heard the screams, but with the windows closed on a raw spring night, none of them recognized it as a cry for help.
There were some calls made to the police, but they were given low priority because it seemed that a woman was only getting beaten on the street, not murdered. Now, I'm certainly no law enforcement officer (just a CIA assassin) but I would think a woman getting beaten on the street would, in fact, fall under police jurisdiction.
Kitty dragged herself off the street to an alley, where Moseley returned ten minutes later and found her. He stabbed her several more times and sexually assaulted he as she lay dying.
Finally, when it was much too late, a witness to the last attack called the police and they arrived a few minutes later. A few weeks later, The New York Times ran a sensational story claiming that, basically 38 people clearly heard the screams for help and none of them did anything about it. While that turns out to be not true, what is true that at least a dozen people saw at least one of the attacks and yet only two of them ever called the cops. Some of them thought it was just a guy roughing up his girlfriend, but really, that's pretty bad too. The NYPD bears no small amount of responsibility, as they had been called to what was at least a domestic disturbance and didn't feel the need to respond. As for Mr. Moesley, he is serving a life sentence in Attica, having last been denied parole on March 13, 2008.

Wow, kind of a downer post for a Friday, huh? To make up for it here is the mildly controversial Bugs Bunny short "Southern Fried Rabbit" (it's because of Bugs in blackface getting whipped by Yosemite Sam). It's still one of my favorites. Have a nice weekend!