Thirty-Eight saw it... Not one reported it

“Thirty-Eight who saw murder didn’t call the police” (1964) is an article written by Martin Gansberg and published in the New York Times Newspaper. This article describes a shocking scenario in which a woman is stabbed on three different occasions in a thirty minute time span, and none of the neighbors who witnessed it called the police. I believe Gansberg is trying to provoke feelings of shock and overall dismay at the lack of compassion people sometimes have regarding others. The article is written as a timeline of horrible events, which eventually lead to the death of twenty-eight year old Catherine Genovese.

Miss Genovese had only been living on Queens New York a little over a year before she was brutally stabbed and murdered outside of her Key Gardens apartment complex.  At 3:20am she followed her normal route of entering her apartment through a rear entrance. She noticed a man standing at the far end of the lot so she tried to make it to a call box to alert the police. The man then stabbed her and fled the scene as a neighbor yelled out of a window. He returned less than 15 minutes later and stabbed her again. Although neighbors were aware of the commotion, no one called the police. The man returned a third time and killed Miss Genovese. Around 3:50am is when the police received the call that the woman was dead. When the neighbors were asked why they hadn’t called, most replied “I didn’t want to get involved”.

This story may be shocking to many people, however; it is a normal occurrence in many urban neighborhoods. I grew up in a very urban area and there were many occasions where police would knock on our door and ask us if we had information on various crimes that had occurred near us. Fear is the common factor that makes people avoid Calling or talking to the police. It becomes a “Him or Me” situation where you have to decide if helping stop or solve a crime is worth risking your own life. Also in our generation the street slogan “Stop snitching” has caused many people to feel like they would lose respect or street credibility by talking to police. This is a very sad but true depiction of what goes on in urban neighborhoods across the country.