The Murder of Kitty Genovese:

The problem was not apathy

I sometimes wonder whether the 38 witnesses would be as notorious as they are today if they had been participants in Kitty's murder rather than just witnesses. Consider this. As recently as the early 20th Century, lynchings were not an uncommon occurrence in the United States, even outside of the south. Often racially motivated, the victims included women and teenage girls. [Footnote J-1.] Photographs of such events survive today, and many of them show otherwise law abiding members of the community looking on with approval if in fact they did not actually participate. [Footnote J-2.] Yet, the stories of these bystanders are mostly forgotten while the story of the 38 witnesses remains timeless.

The reason can be summed up in one word: "apathy". While the lynch mob mentality was widely known and understood 40 years ago, no one in March of 1964 could understand how onlookers not poisoned by anger or motivated by racial anomosity could have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to Kitty's plight. It was the supposed indifference to Kitty's ordeal on the part of the 38 witnesses that shocked everyone. It led The New York Times to wonder, "What Kind of People Are We?" and A.M. Rosenthal to write about a "Sickness Called Apathy". [Footnote J-3.]

Yet, if any aspect of the Kitty Genovese story is open to question, it is that the witnesses were simply apathetic or that their reactions that night were somehow a departure from the norm. In a series of experiments conducted as a result of the controversy surrounding Kitty's death, psychologists, Bibb Latan� and John Darley, discovered what was called the "Bystander Effect". Simply put, their findings were that the more bystanders there are who witness an emergency, the less likely any of them are to to help the victim. [Footnote J-4.] They attributed the Bystander Effect to a pair of mindsets they called:

• Pluralistic Ignorance (i.e., Each bystander thinks, "If no one else is helping, does this person really need help?"), and
  
  
• Diffusion of Responsibility (i.e., Each bystander thinks, "Only one person needs to call the police and certainly someone else will.")

[Footnote J-5.] Writing in 1985, Psychology Professor R. Lance Shotland of Pennsylvania University concluded:

"After close to 20 years of research, the evidence indicates that 'the bystander effect,' as it has come to be called, holds for all types of emergencies, medical or criminal."

[Footnote J-6.] According to The New York Times:

"A raft of behavioral studies performed over the last 40 years suggests that Ms. Genovese's neighbors reacted as they reportedly did not because they were apathetic or cold-hearted, but because they were confused, uncertain and afraid. 'Where others might have seen them as villains,' Professor Takooshian [professor of urban psychology at Fordham University] said, 'psychologists see these people as normal.'"

[Bracketed text is mine] [Footnote J-7.]

However, Latan�, Darley and others apparently assumed that the popular account of Kitty's death was true, so they believed that the witnesses saw, heard and understood more than I think they did. My take on it is a bit different. I believe that most of the 38 witnesses did not see or hear enough to understand what was happening. [Footnote J-8.] I think that others who could have or should have known that something was wrong either froze or went into denial. [Footnote J-9.] That seems understandable. Not only did they live in a neighborhood that was virtually crime free  [Footnote J-10.], but they were awakened suddenly in the middle of the night (when no one's powers of judgment or observation would be 100%) to a situation they did not fully witness and for which they were completely unprepared. [Footnote J-11.]

The events of September 11, 2001 provide an example of the psychological ability of humans to deny the obvious. At 8:48 AM on a clear, sunny, cloudless day, a plane flew directly into the north tower of the World Trade Center which - tall as it was - was still far below normal air traffic lanes. The evidence that the crash was intentional could not have been clearer.  Yet, until the second plane hit some 18 minutes later, how many people thought to themselves, "It must have been an accident"?

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Click here to read a detailed analysis of the March 27, 1964 New York Times article that broke the story.

April 3, 2004
I believe the psychological discussions about the apathetic on lookers are incorrect. From about 1959 to June 1962, I worked part time (while in High School) at Bohack's, a supermarket on Leffert's Boulevard a couple of blocks from the apartment building in which there were on-lookers. I knew many of the people in that apartment building since they did their shopping at Bohack's. They were predominantly German Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. These people were used to hearing screaming and not getting involved. They led their simple lives and kept to themselves and their close friends. As a 'child of the Holocaust', I experienced this attitude with my parents also. It was a matter that they did not want to get involved with other people's problems, even if bodily harm was involved. I recall an incident around that time when a Rabbi was being beaten in the streets of New York and people were just watching. The watching is done with blank stares and comfort that the on-lookers are not being harmed.
Michael Fischer
Sarasota Springs, NY


[Excerpted from emails dated March 15 and April 6, 2004]
       I also worked in the area for many years, and a roommate of mine had family on Austin Street, just two blocks away from the attack site. They lived there in March 1964 and I visited them several times.
       I worked in Kew Gardens doing deliveries. My days there making deliveries were not as pleasant as other towns I worked in. Yes, many residents were elderly or immigrants. Quite a number were well educated. But they weren't experienced or smart enough to help a neighbor. Kitty worked nights, so she was home in the day, and known to quite a few. But they sure knew how to kick up a fuss in Woolworth's when they thought they were overcharged six cents.
       I like to believe that people will offer help when someone is in danger, but I knew enough of the residents there to think that if Kitty had just been attacked, or Moseley ran away in fear, that the witnesses would not have called.
       If someone there felt a call for help would have saved her life is not really an issue. They were afraid - afraid of getting their names in the media, afraid they'd have to testify in court and lose time from work, afraid of peer pressure. Even if calling would have saved her, I don't think anyone would have. The fact that the majority were elderly and immigrants is only of little consequence.
[Name withheld]

Footnotes

Footnote J-1:

• "15-year-old Girl Lynched", The Cleveland Gazette, p. 2 (March 19, 1892).
  
  
• "Lynchings of Nineteen Seven", The Cleveland Journal, p. 4 (Feb. 8, 1908) (Reporting 42 people lynched in 1907 including "3 Negro women").
  
  
• "17 Year Old Negro Boy Lynched", The Union, (a local Ohio newspaper), p. 4 (Oct. 12, 1918)

Footnote J-2: Typical is a photograph of the 1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana, which shows the townspeople (both men and women) smiling to the camera. Shipp and Smith are plainly visible in the background, each one dead at the end of a hangman's rope. A copy of this and other photographs can be viewed in: James Allen, Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, (Twin Palms Publ. 2000).

Footnote J-3:

• Editorial, "What Kind of People Are We?", The New York Times, p. 18, col. 2 (March 28, 1964).
  
  
• A. M. Rosenthal, "Study of the Sickness Called Apathy", The New York Times Magazine, Part 6, p. 24, col. 4, last para. (May 3, 1964).

Footnote J-4:

• See Bibb Latan� & John M. Darley, "The Unresponsive Bystander: Why Doesn't He Help?" (Prentice Hall, 1970).
  
  
• R. Lance Shotland, "When Bystanders Just Stand By", Psychology Today, (June 1985).
  
  
• "One Witness Better Than 38 in a Crisis, Study Here Shows", The New York Times, p. 56, col. 5 (July 10, 1966)
  
  

Footnote J-5:   R. Lance Shotland, "When Bystanders Just Stand By", Psychology Today, p. 52, col. 1 (June 1985). Their work won Latan� and Darley an award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "Study of Slaying Brings Award to 2", The New York Times, p. 31 (Dec. 19, 1968).

Footnote J-6:   R. Lance Shotland, "When Bystanders Just Stand By", Psychology Today, p. 50, col. 1 (June 1985).

Footnote J-7:   Jim Rasenberger, "Kitty, 40 Years Later", The New York Times, (Final Ed.) Sect. 14 , p. 1 , col. 2 (Feb. 8, 2004). Click here to read a copy of the article on the Middlesex County College web site. Close out the window to return here.

Footnote J-8:

• See, Loudon Wainwright, "The View From Here: The Dying Girl That No One Helped", Life Magazine, p. 21, col. 2 (April 10, 1964) ("Not all of these people, it must be said, understood they were watching a murder. Some thought they were looking at a lovers' quarrel. Others saw or heard so very little that they could not have reached any conclusion about the disturbance.").
  
  
• See also, R. Lance Shotland, "When Bystanders Just Stand By", Psychology Today, p. 52, cols. 1, 2 (June 1985) (Bystander intervention is lowered if the situation seems ambiguous to the bystander. At times, people misinterpret rare events such as crimes even if they see them.).

Footnote J-9:   See, for example:

• R. Lance Shotland, "When Bystanders Just Stand By", Psychology Today, p. 52, col. 2 (June 1985) ("People who see a crime, an accident or other unlikely event may wonder, 'Did it really happen?' and freeze while they try to figure it out.").
  
  
• Trial Testimony of Andree Picq, Record on Appeal p. 62 ("I was still at the window, scared, kind of frozen") [HTML] [PDF - 57 KB].
  
  
• Edward Weiland, "Austin Street Can't Forget an Unheeded Cry in the Night", The Long Island Press, p. 5, col. 4 (March 28, 1964) (Quoting one witness, described as an "elderly matron", as saying, ""Of course I heard the screams. But there was nothing I could do. I was afraid. My hands were trembling. I couldn't have dialed for an operator if I'd tried. I never even thought of it. I was too afraid.".").

Footnote J-10:

• Martin Gansberg, "37 Who Saw Murder Didn�t Call the Police", The New York Times, p. 38, cols. 1 - 2 (March 27, 1964) ("Lieut. Bernard Jacobs, who handled the investigation by the detectives, said: 'It is one of the better neighborhoods. You only get the usual complaints about boys playing or garbage cans being tuned over.'")
  
  
• A. M. Rosenthal, Thirty-Eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case., Part 1, p. 18 (Berkeley : Univ. of Calif. Press 1999) (In the car to Kew Gardens, the detectives ... kept saying what a nice neighborhood it was, how quiet, how respectable."). Click here and scroll down to p. 18 to read this book on another web site. Close out window to return here.

Footnote J-11:   Milgram and Hollander, "The Murder They Heard", The Nation, pp. 602 - 04 (June 15, 1964) reprinted in The Long Island Press, p. 21 (July 5, 1964) ("The incongruity, the sheer improbability of the event predisposed many to reject the most extreme interpretation: that a young woman was in fact being murdered outside the window. How much more probable, not to say more consoling, was the interpretation that a drunken party was sounding off, that two lovers were quarreling or that youths were playing a nasty prank.")

Footnote J-12:

• Loudon Wainwright, "The View From Here: The Dying Girl That No One Helped", Life Magazine, p. 21, col. 3 (April 10, 1964).
  
  
• Jim Rasenberger, "Kitty, 40 Years Later", The New York Times, (Final Ed.) Sect. 14 , p. 1 , col. 2 (Feb. 8, 2004) ("[M]any of the 38 were consumed by guilt after the crime.").

Footnote J-13:   Loudon Wainwright, "The View From Here: The Dying Girl That No One Helped", Life Magazine, p. 21, col. 3 (April 10, 1964).

Footnote J-14:

• Seedman & Hellman, Chief!, p. 117 (Arthur Fields Books, N.Y. 1974) (N.B., Seedman and Hellman used fictitious names for the witnesses. Their name for Andree Picq was Georgette Share.)
  
  
• See also, Trial testimony of Andree Picq, Record on Appeal, p. 62 ("I was still at the window scared, kind of frozen ... ."). [HTML] [PDF - 57 KB]

A year after the killing, Andree Picq, a native of France, told the Times:

"I tried last time [to call]; I really tried, but I was gasping for breath and was unable to talk into the telephone."

Martin Gansberg, "Murder Street: Would They Aid?", The New York Times, p. 37, col. 4 (March 12, 1965).

Footnote J-15:   Martin Gansberg, "Kew Gardens Slayiung: A Look Back", The New York Times, p. BQLI 15 (March 17, 1974).

Footnote J-16:   David Anderson, "4 Kew Gardens Residents Testify To Seeing Woman Slain on Street", The New York Times, p. 50, col. 2 (June 10, 1964) (Notwithstanding the headline, nothing in the Times article suggested that anyone saw Kitty killed on the street.)

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