The news very seldom pisses me off to the extent that this little incident did. On June 23rd, as a stabbing victim lay bleeding to death on the floor of a Wichita, Kansas convenience store ... 5 shoppers stepped over her body and just kept shopping. To make matters worse, one of these fine citizens stopped to take a picture of the dying woman with his cell phone.
You would think this scene would have played out in New York, LA or DC, but not in Kansas. Isn't this supposed to be the Heartland of the United States where the people are the "salt of the earth"? Then why did it take over 2 minutes for someone to call 911 after the discovery of the body (all this was documented on the store's security camera)?
Local statutes only require people to stop and render aid in the case of a traffic accident so law enforcement feels that they can not do anything.
I beg to differ. All states have laws in effect against "depraved indifference". Depraved Indifference is where a person's conduct, "is so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in the lack of regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes on a person who intentionally causes a crime". Seems like the definition fits.
The victim, LaShanda Calloway, died shortly after arriving at the hospital. Would the 2 extra minutes have made a difference? What a shame that we even have to ask the question.
Friday, July 6, 2007
Depraved Indifference
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26 comments:
My prayers go out to the friends and family of the victim. No one should have to see their loved ones so callousley treated. What has our society become?
that is uncomprehensible
my my life without the reset button is just scary.
Seems like those who ignored the situation should be held accountable but I know there are plenty of neighborhoods out there where you ignore it so that you do not become the next victim, what a violent world we have become.
blanco ... it sure is.
sarah ... they at least could have called emergency services (immediately) ... and what about the idiot who took the picture?
What has our society become?
Would you go for Sodom and Gomorrah?
good god, what have we come to that we are so callous?
This is supposed to happen in big cities around the coastal areas of the USofA; this is NOT suppose to happen in our Heartland. My personal "Hall Of Shame Award" goes to all "The Bad Samaritans" who "failed to do the right thing when no one was watching."
tlrb
OMG it makes me SICK TO DEATH!
How can people live with themselves??? Really...
I still find it hard to believe that people were stepping over her .... and someone taking a picture of her? WHAT?
All I can think too is...
what in the world is this world coming to. It's scary!!
Dude, you should put your email on your profile so we can email you back when you post a comment on our blogs...
I wanted to tell you..
nope.. no car payments ever :-)
inspired ... I don't know about Sodom and Gomorah (I'm hoping there is more than one righteous family), but maybe that neighborhood should suffer the fate of those cities (only kidding)
lime ... I have seen hundreds of dead bodies on the battlefield and have never taken a picture of any of them. If any of them were alive, we would make sure they were disarmed and call a medic. If soldiers on the battlefield have this respect for the "enemy", why can't we have the same for our fellow citizens?
tlrb ... the point is this shouldn't happen anywhere it's a sad day when I'm embarrassed to be an American.
terry ... as far as the person who took a picture of the victim with her cell phone ... I can think of a much better use for that phone ... like call 911
Hey Paul.. this is Terri w/ an "i"
:-)
Send me an email so I can email you this great pic of Rudy and Hillary. I think you'll get a kick out of it
Wow, yes... this is a terrible story.... poor woman...
You are right that ticks me off. Who cares what city. That shouldn't happen anywhere!
By the way, I awarded you the thinking blogger award! If you want it the button is now up on my site.
This is horrible. In this country noone can be punished for not helping someone like that. Which I think is wrong. "It´s not the actions of the evil..." or however it goes...
I cannot believe this...You know, I don't think a single one of us would let that happen to someone.
--snow
terri ... sorry for the "y", the e-mail has been sent.
eve ... yes poor woman, I hope her family sues all the people who stepped over her.
david ... thanks for the award, I will treasure it ... and it shouldn't happen anywhere on the planet. When we start becoming indifferent to others, we end up in really bad situations. Hitler couldn't have done what he did if the German people had stood up and cared for the Gypsys and the Jews.
Evalinn ... I lived in Alaska for 3 years and they had a law that if you saw someone hitch-hiking in the winter ... you had to give them a lift. At first it was a little wierd for me (coming from NYC), but the whole idea behind it was that someone could freeze to death while others drove by.
snow ... a certainly pray that none of us would do something this heinous and by our inactions allow someone to die. I keep wondering if this woman had kids ... and what do you tell them?
That is total bullshit.
I am always shocked when I
hears things like this but, at
the same time am not..that's scary in itself.
All we can do is ensure that WE don't ever do such a thing...
and teach our children the same.
ms.l ... that is absolutely correct, the children (and grand-children) are the keys to breaking this cycle of indifference.
I just thought of one small glimmer of hope! At least it made the news. It was still newsworthy! The day that it is no longer newsworthy or a shock....
The people who stepped over the dying woman, and especially the person who took a picture on a cell phone really are cold and callous people. If there isn't a charge for such indifferent behavior then there should be. That really is just disgusting...
david ... there is that, at least it was newsworthy. Can you imagine a world where this wouldn't be newsworthy ... but the adventures of Linsey Lohan and Paris Hilton were?
sunni ... welcome to my blog. It doesn't look like these people will be charged with anything. They are lucky I'm not a prosecutor/judge in their city.
It's crap like this that make me sometimes ashamed to be a Kansan. But don't forget, Wichita is the same area that nursed and created that BTK guy.
bigsib ... this sort of thing could happen in any city it just happened to have been caught on tape in Topeka. Society has changed ... and not for the better.
That story just broke my heart.
I am so concerned about the kinds of people we are producing in this country. Or were people always this callous, indifferent, really sociopathic, and somehow I just didn't know it?
I don't think so. I believe we have stopped teaching our children how to be virtuous, moral, ethical, responsible, loving people. Parents have stopped teaching their children much of anything at all, in fact. They are leaving everything to a bruised and battered and underfunded public school system.
It was never the job of the school system to raise our kids, only to teach them their three R's.
slouching mom ... I could go on and on about our education system (and probably will in a later post) ... but the fact of the matter is we are responsible for raising our own kids. It is our duty to instill in them the morality they will have for their entire lives.
This is stunning. I am from Chicago where I could see this happening, and I now live in Philly where the homocide rate is growing exponentially, but Kansas? I had a friend trying to get me to move there because the folks are so nice. This tells you that people have become both scared and callous in all parts of the so-called civilized world.
enemy ... as I've said before, there is a sickness seeping across this nation and the only thing that can cure it is for the good folks of this country to start standing up.
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