By: Shuying Wang
On May 16th, 2010, around 9:30pm, a 23-year-old Chinese woman was
raped and beaten by a sharp metal swing/pipe, and died one week later
in Flushing of New York. The woman came to USA as a student just two
months before her death, and worked in a nail salon to save money for
her law school study. A Mexican drunk man dragged her into an alley
along the road, smashed her head with a pipe and raped her. However,
several surveillance video cameras showed that at least 2 or 3 people
ignored the victim’s cry for help during the twenty minutes.
Here, I hope that the murderer will be punished as soon as possible.
He deserves the worst punishment in this world from the revenge
perspective. But what I want everybody to perceive today are that when
the murderer beat the victim’s head for more than 50 times, she cried
for help for 20 minutes, the attack place is just right by the busy
road, and the time is only around 9:30pm. How come only one person who
witnessed the scene called 911 after twenty minutes? Let us suppose
that other passersby were too worried about the safety of themselves.
But at least they can call 911 at once, and a young life might be
saved due to this call. Yes, these people might say what is wrong with
them because they did not do anything wrong. They are innocent even
though they witnessed the accident. The reasoning is that they did not
have any action. But no action doesn’t mean they did the right thing.
In the movie “The accused”, the bystanders witnessed and did not do
anything but applauded while the girl was raped. The court finally
confirmed applause is an action. So the bystanders were convicted. It
is the same thing as in this murder case, and there are two murderers
in this brutal case: one is the murderer, another are the people who
ignored the attack. I strongly recommend that the prosecutors not only
charge the murderer, but the passersby. Bystanders are not innocent in
this case. They should stand before the court with the murderer, and
they deserve to be charged. In USA, some states do have such laws to
regulate the bystanders, such as the Good Samaritans. But these laws
are not really enforced in these states. Therefore, the passersby,
bystanders have no duty to rescue the victims even they saw the crime
scene. “The legal system is only interested in the body in motion,…
the body at rest….. is paradoxically beyond the law’s reach, outside
the range of its radar.” “If [the duty to rescue] exists, it is
entirely a moral one, and not one that is mandated under the law.” 1
Therefore, whether or not the passersby want to save the victim, there
is no law to mandate them to do such duty to rescue, which means they
are not obligated to do the rescue thing. The only way they might feel
guilty is from morality and ethics.
Footnote:
1. The Myth of Moral Justice by Thane rosenbaum, chapter 15, p259
