I don’t often describe people’s behavior as despicable, but this is an abnormal situation. Sean P. Conroy, an otherwise anonymous man was waiting on a crowded subway platform (13th and market) at 2:35 PM when he was accosted by four teenagers who decided to “body drop” him (this is apparently considered fun to some). One thing apparently led to another, and the four teens ended up beating Sean to death. There was no altercation, no motive for attack, no confrontation of any sort. They simply picked him at random, attacked him, and beat him to death.

As reprehensible as it is, this is not the worst behavior exhibited on the 13th street subway platform that day. According to the reports:

Other people were on the platform, [police captain] Harold said, but left when the sergeant approached.

Conroy went “into some type of difficult breathing, chest pains, palpitations,” Harold said. “He was in obvious distress.”

“No one tried to help,” Harold said. “It just looked like a disturbance.”

When an innocent man is attacked and beaten people stand and watch, and yet when the police approach to try and assess the situation, people decide to run. What kind of screwed up society do we live in where people will sit idly by while a man is murdered and then flee for safety when law enforcement arrives? I remember my grandmother, a woman who was born in Germany in the 1920s, telling me that the people who witnessed the Nazi atrocities and did nothing where just as guilty as the Nazis. My gut instinct is to disagree on the grounds that there is a fundamental difference between action that causes harm and inaction that allows harm to occur (with apologies to Isaac Asimov). In this case, I think that those who watched exhibited more deplorable behavior, if that is even possible, than those who acted. This sort of activity began as a defense against gang retribution, but the “stop snitching” campaign has taken on a life of its own to the point where it is now an ethic unto itself. Witness for example one of the schoolmates of the alleged attackers:

Ty, 15, said he was interested to know whether the youth already in custody had identified the other alleged killers.

“Me personally, the way I was raised, I wouldn’t snitch,” he said.

Nice Ty – glad to see you sticking up for your principles. By any chance was “the truth” included in your education as part of “the way you were raised”?

Now I don’t want to live in a 1984-esque police state, or have to live with a security camera on every corner, but if people refuse to take even the slightest action to bring a murderer to justice, then I’m afraid that may be what we end up doing.