A Critique of Martin Gansberg’s “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police” In Martin Gansberg’s essay “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call The Police,” he tell us the story of a young New York City woman named Miss Genovese who is murdered by Winston Mosley while thirty-eight of her neighbor see this happen and yet do not call the police. Gansberg takes us step by step through how the murder took place that fateful night, and also shows us how the neighbors reacted as it was happening. Later in the article, Gansberg gives us interviews with the neighbors on why they didn’t call the police. Gansberg argues what could have happened if the neighbors had called the police as soon as the attack took place. One of the reasons Gansberg argues what could have happened if the police had been called as soon as the attack happened is that Miss Genovese could have been saved.
Kitty Genovese was murdered in an alley in New York while at least 38 witnesses made no attempt to help her (Darley & Lata e,1968). Genovese was stabbed multiple times by the assailant and died 30 minutes later (Levine & Collins, 2007). Her screams were heard by many bystanders but all of them remained idle. The bystanders had reportedly seen lights from other apartments and knew others were watching and listening. Words such as moral decay, dehumanization, alienation, and anomie arouse after this incident to reason the fact no action was taken by these bystanders (Darley & Latane, 1968).
Imagine how angry someone would be if they were living in the same neighborhood of a criminal, unaware that they committed a crime. Public awareness has different forms. Currently, parents could title a section in the newspaper labeling what their child did. They also have the option of putting it on the news, so not that one or two people could see, but everybody could. Back during the Scarlett Letter, townspeople didn’t have that option due to the lack of technology.
Still today you wonder why people would even think of doing this, but you hear people write stories and documentaries about it all the time. People of today don’t really think of murder as anything because they see it so much on T.V, but should it be that way? If one heard somebody was shot, they would not respond very dramatically, if one were to hear that someone was brutally murdered, it almost seems as if the world is falling apart. It’s funny that these two things are so similar, yet so different. That is what these two stories explain.
Bystander effect is a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help during an emergency situation when there are other individuals present. As means to get an understanding of why individuals do less when they are in the presence of others, social psychologists John Darley, then at NYU and Bibb Latané at Columbia university conducted a study titled “Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusing Responsibility”. The original study done by Darley and Latané was sparked by the Kitty Genovese incident in which Genovese was stabbed to death over a period of thirty minutes and none of the thirty-eight witnesses present called for help. The purpose of the study was to figure out why there is less action taken during an emergency when there are more people present. One would think that more people present would be equivalent to more 911 calls or acts of intervention and aid but that is not the case.
Even though the beating and subsequent murder took place outside a public store during daylight hours in the center of town, not a single witness came forward to help Marrow or prevent the crime from occurring. What kind of person can just stand by and watch? To make it worse, not one person spoke for Marrow in the aftermath nor was anyone willing to incriminate the Teel brothers and their accomplice. While this is likely due in part to the KKK’s influence, it is still appalling to know that so many people in my own town could potentially turn their backs on my well-being. To go on, these same eye witnesses were never questioned by authorities until 48 hours after the incident occurred.
Over the next few hours, Francois eventually made many admissions regarding the disappearance of the women. He was arrested and charged with a single count of murder in the death of Catina Newmaster on August 26, 1998. The police were elated. A search warrant was drawn up and signed. Then, on September 2, 1998, shortly after midnight, a team of detectives, the district attorney, EMS crews, crime scene processors and an army of cops drove over to 99 Fulton Street and entered into the house of
Although, There was a tremendous amount of damning evidence against Pickton that the jurors deciding his fate did not hear during his year-long trial in 2007, including an allegation from a sex-trade worker that he nearly stabbed her to death. A series of behind-the-scenes legal rulings meant explosive Crown evidence was kept from the jury, which ultimately found Pickton not guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of six women, but guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder. Whether the six murders Pickton was convicted of committing were sex crimes was never debated during the trail, because the victim’s remains did not provide the evidence. When prosecutor Michael Petire told the jury at the end of the prosecution‘s case on August 13, 2007 that he was “satisfied the evidence the Crown should be calling has been called, “what he surely meant was that he had called the evidence he was allowed by the law to reveal to the jury. Some of the information such as most of the evidence pertaining to the other 20 victims was held back from the jury after the judge ruled in August 2006 that Pickton should face two separate trials; the first one on six counts, and the second one on 20 counts.
It was DNA evidence that led to a conviction in the 1998 murder case of 10-year-old Anna Palmer who was attacked and killed outside of her own front door in Salt Lake City. The crime was heinous, and included multiple stab wounds to her body, but following the crime, investigators had no witnesses, little evidence, and no apparent suspects, the news station reports. However, in 2009, forensic analysts were called in to assist in the case, and they decided to examine the girl’s fingernails for DNA samples. Using visible and alternative light sources to look for DNA not belonging to the girl, they made a hit, and matched it to a man named Matthew Brock, who had lived a block away at the time of the her murder and was age nineteen then. Brock was already in prison serving a ten year sentence for a sex related crime with a child, and he pled guilty in 2011 to an aggravated murder charge in the death of Anna Palmer and is now in prison for life.
Kitty Genovese – The ‘Bystander Affect’/Genovese Syndrome Case Study and Summary Case Study; Catherine Susan Genovese (July 7, 1935 – March 13, 1964), commonly known as Kitty Genovese, was a New York City woman who was stabbed to death near her home in the Kew Gardens section of Queens, New York on March 13, 1964. The circumstances of her murder and the lack of reaction of numerous neighbours were reported by a newspaper article published two weeks later; the common portrayal of neighbours being fully aware but completely nonresponsive has later been criticized as inaccurate. Nonetheless, it prompted investigation into the social psychological phenomenon that has become known as the bystander effect (or "Genovese syndrome") and especially diffusion of responsibility. Genovese had driven home from her job working as a bar manager early in the morning of March 13, 1964. Arriving home at about 3:15 a.m. she parked in the Long Island Rail Road parking lot about 100 feet (30 m) from her apartment's door, located in an alley way at the rear of the building.