Saw Murder Didn\'t Call the Police Everyone

¶ … Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police"

Everyone likes to think that they would do the right thing when the time demanded it. However, in the modern world that is full of uncertainties, we often do not perform as well as we wish we would in dire situations. In fact, this is the main topic of Martin Gansberg's essay "37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police." Within the essay, Gansberg describes a terrifying event or a woman was killed and 37 witnesses failed to call the police to prevent the killer taking her life. With this extreme scenario Gansberg is arguing to main points: many people are afraid in a modern world to get involved with a conflict in fear that they might suffer themselves, as well as the fact that there are little legal ramifications for witnesses failing to act on their civic duty to prevent crimes from happening.

Within his essay, Martin Gansberg describes a shocking incident in Queens, New York. Apparently, for over 30 min., 37 people who had heard a murder take place "watched a killer stock and stabbing woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens" (19). The incident occurred in 1964, and shocked citizens and law enforcement later heard about how so many people ignore the frightened calls and other evidence that a woman was in mortal danger. Twice people had turned on the lights, prompting the killer to get scared away. However, on the third attempt you a successful at stopping the woman several times. Only one witness eventually called the police, but only too late, after the woman was dead. For 35 whole minutes, the killer continued to harass the woman until he was eventually successful and stabbed her to death. All of which occurred within earshot of over 37 neighbors. In the end, 28-year-old Catherine Genovese was found dead. The essay written by Gansberg describes the incident, and the serious implications it has in regards to the nature of goodwill in modern society.

Gansberg really drives home how shocked Montfort was, which also helps increase the shock value for the reader as well. This incident was so shocking "not because it is a murder, because the good people failed to call the police" (19). It is dumbfounding that so many people would've heard a crime and let the poor girl die in the streets, without bothering to call the police or even go outside to really investigate what was going on. Gansberg vividly describes how the attack went down, including the fact that several witnesses had woken up in the lights on to hear Catherine scream "Oh, my God, he stabbed me!" (20). Clearly, many of the neighbors had heard her screams and yet did nothing in response. After only a brief response from one of the neighbors telling the attacker to leave the girl alone, all the lights the permit once again went off in the attacker came back to again harass Catherine. Days later, most of the witnesses explained to police that they were afraid for their own lives, which prompted them not to call the police right away. Yet, many of them "had given meaningless answers when asked what they had feared" (22). It is clear, that many of the witnesses did not feel it was their full responsibility to help the poor woman that she got from street.

In this essay, Gansberg's primary message is the fact that so many people are unwilling to place themselves in danger to save the life of another. Although these individuals were not bad people themselves, the feared getting involved with the situation that had nothing to do with them, as they believed they would drag them in and cause them personal harm. Now, the police had to deal with a situation where innocent bystanders could have stepped in and saved this girl's life. It was quite a dilemma for police at the time, who were not sure whether or not "the witnesses can be held legally responsible in any way for the failure to report the crime" (22). This leads Gansberg to present his secondary motivation for writing the essay: to draw attention to how ineffective the law is in regards to prompting witnesses to be more active in helping prevent crimes. Gansberg discusses how New York State law at the time did have legal requirements for witnesses to report crimes to medical examiners and to be held legally responsible if they withheld any information in a kidnapping case. However, statutes at the time did not include failure to report crime as it was occurring.

In order to help strengthen his point, Gansberg uses a variety of pure factual information. The presents clear and direct facts, like the exact time the attacks began, as well as Catherine's activity prior to the murder. This factual presentation of events helps strengthen his argument because it shows clear logical reasoning and the fact that he has done sufficient investigation enough to make a claim on the actual incident. Having spoken to police, Gansberg presents a very reliable explanation of the events leading up to the murder. In his essay, he writes, "she turned off the lights to her car, locked the door and started to walk 100 feet to the entrance of her apartment at 82-70 Austin Street, which is in a Tudor building, with stores on the first floor and apartments on the second" (20). Obviously, Gansberg had gotten most of his facts from speaking with detectives on the case, which helps strengthen the reliability of his argument and claims.