KINGSTON IS fast becoming a city of the apathetic. The latest case in point is that of Det. Sgt. Gladys Brown-Campbell who was mugged, slashed and stabbed several times by a robber on a busy street in downtown Kingston on Monday.
According to the news report, several persons witnessed the robbery and knife attack on her, but not one lifted a finger to help the female victim, even while she was struggling with her assailant on the ground.
Is it that the Jamaican people have grown too callous, too inured to violence to react in defence of an obvious victim, too individualistic, too apathetic or just too scared to help? Is it that those people who witnessed the attack on the gutsy detective did not recognise her need for help? Just the weekend before at a ceremony at the Norman Manley Law School, UWI, Mona, she was presented with the Certificate of Legal Education, qualifying her as an attorney-at-law, the first policewoman in Jamaica's history to so equip herself.
The barefaced attack on the plucky detective calls to mind one of the most egregious examples of bystander apathy anywhere. It occurred 39 years ago in a middle class area of Queens, New York, on the morning of March 13, 1964. It involved 28-year-old Kitty Genovese, a bar manager who, while returning home from her job, was attacked repeatedly by a man who eventually stabbed her to death.
At least 38 people in their apartments nearby saw her being attacked or heard her screams and her pleas for help but none called the police even from the safety of their homes. The one person who alerted the police to the attack, did so some 30 minutes after the attack began. It took just two minutes for the police to arrive at the scene but by then, Kitty Genovese was dead. If anyone of those persons had called the police earlier, her life might have been saved.
Of course the fear factor must weigh heavily in making up one's mind whether to assist a person who is seemingly at the receiving end of the violent behaviour of another and as the saying goes, self-preservation is the first law of nature.
We cannot legislate to force citizens to be 'good Samaritans' but the frequency with which such brazen attacks occur nowadays and in the most public of places, must be of concern to the majority of us, the law-abiding citizens.
We have to recognise that if we continue to stand on the sidelines so as not to "get involved" then sooner or later the criminal elements will be so emboldened that they will systematically target us one after the other as their next potential victim. It is time to translate our collective responsibility as law-abiding citizens into action.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
