In 1964, The New York Times published Martin Gansberg’s now famous article “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police” about the killing of Catherine Genovese. It claimed that thirty-eight people witnessed a murder (of a woman some of them knew) and did not intervene, giving lazy excuses for their lack of action afterward.

Later, the title was proven partially false in another New York Times article, but the story still led to the formulation of the bystander effect theory; a theory in psychology which, according to Psychology Today, posits that observers in emergency situations are less likely to intervene the more other observers there are around them, even observers who would be likely to intervene if they were alone. The phenomenon is prevalent and well-documented. It has even been discovered in the behavior of five-year-olds in a study published by the Association for Psychological Science. According to Psychology Today, Psychologists explain the bystander effect for many reasons, but namely that in emergency situations humans’ sense of personal responsibility is diffused when surrounded by other bystanders, and that humans model their behavior off of those around them, so if no one is intervening they are unlikely to.

The popular ABC primetime show What Would You Do? features many examples of the phenomenon, staging offensive acts in public and seeing how bystanders react. Often on the show, large groups of bystanders react late, or do not react at all.

Last week, Ms. Ostendorf’s English 9 Accelerated class read “38 Who Saw Murder…” and learned about the bystander effect. They watched the following video demonstrating and discussing the effect on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OSsPfbup0ac

Below are excerpts from interviews of three students in Ms. Ostendorf’s class. They gave their opinions on “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder…” and the bystander effect, commenting on where it manifests in their lives.

Jack Malek, 14

What was your initial reaction to reading “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder…”?

I was really surprised to read that thirty-eight people saw a woman get killed that they knew and they did nothing about it, they did nothing to save her.

Do you think the bystander effect is a real phenomenon?

I do. This is happening right here and this story is a perfect example. Because people think when they see something, and there are a lot of people around that someone else is going to do something about it. So, this is a perfect example.

Did reading “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder…” lead you to question yourself?

I questioned myself, “Have I ever been a part of the bystander effect? Have I ever done this? Have I ever been part of this phenomenon?”

Do you think you would have reacted in this situation surrounded by other bystanders? Would you now?

After reading this story, yes. But, I don’t know if I would have been part of the bystander effect before.

Otto Schmidt, 14

What was your initial reaction to reading “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder…”?

I was somewhat shocked and surprised that the people didn’t help when needed, but after thinking about the story and realizing the circumstances of it being the nighttime and people not really wanting to help and thinking somebody else would, I wasn’t super surprised by the outcome.

Did reading “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder…” lead you to question yourself?

It definitely made me think more about ignoring, not just when people are in need but ignoring a lot of things, or just doing things because everybody else is doing them even though maybe it’s not the right thing to do.

Before you learned about this, do you think you would have reacted the same way as the other 38 people if you were in that situation?

Probably.

How would you react now?

At the very least, it would lead me to think about what happened here. And then, to act.

Henry Aerts, 14

What was your initial reaction to reading “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder…”?

Honestly kind of shocked but in a way I was also kind of not surprised. Because, I’ve seen people doing that where someone is in need but no one helps, they just walk by because they think that someone else will help them or they just don’t want to get involved. So, I’ve seen that kind of thing before.

How do you see the bystander effect in your personal life?

For example, when the teacher asks a question in class, a lot of times no one says anything because they think that someone else is going to answer it, but then in the end it just goes awkward and silent because no one can answer it, thinking that someone else would.

Did reading “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder…” lead you to question yourself?

Yeah, it kind of did. Because, I wasn’t sure if I would have done anything different. Maybe I would have called the police, I don’t know.

How would you react now?

If it happened tonight, I would definitely call.

Hopefully, with more knowledge about the bystander effect, people will begin to intervene more in emergency situations, even when surrounded by others.

Since it’s June, it seems to be a good time to write about Pride Month and its history!

June is Pride Month for the LGBTQ+ community. June was chosen because it’s the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which began on the early morning of June 28th, 1969. The Stonewall Riots took place in New York, and are often considered the start of the modern gay rights movement. The Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia at the time, and was one of the only places to openly cater to the gay community, including its most marginalized members, such as transgender people, drag queens, butch lesbians, and homeless youth. Police attempted to raid the inn, and tensions went up when transgender women refused to go to the bathrooms with police officers to have their biological gender checked. A crowd gathered, drawn by the commotion, and were sparked into action when a woman resisted arrest, fighting with police officers.

There are two other very important anniversaries to the LGBTQ+ community that also take place in June. The first is the anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting last summer, which was on June 12th. The shooting was a hate crime that killed 49 people attending a gay and lesbian club in Orlando, and was both the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter and the deadliest hate crime against LGBTQ+ people in US history.

On a substantially happier note, the final noteworthy date, June 26th, marks the anniversary of same-sex marriage legalization in the United States! The Supreme Court ruled in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples could indeed get married, a goal that the LGBTQ+ community had been working towards ever since the Stonewall Riots started the Pride movement. It just goes to show, even though we still have a long way to go, we’ve come very far since the days of Stonewall.

(Cool side note: If you Google any word related to Pride Month during June, such as ‘gay’ or ‘bisexual,’ Google will add rainbows to the search results.)

On the 22nd of May, a suicide bomber targeted the Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena, in Manchester England, in the second terrorist bombing the city has seen (The first being the 1996 IRA bombings). Of the 22,000 people at the concert, the bomb killed 23, including the 22 year old terrorist, and injured 116 more. Immediately afterwards, many tried to flee the arena, quickly leading to widespread panic across the city.

However, the immediate response from both citizens and emergency services was commendable. Concert goers where offered free rides, and lodging, over Twitter, or even just a place to charge phones so they could contact their parents. In particular, local Sikh communities and temples helped to respond; providing meals and safe places to stay.

Shortly after the bombing, police investigated a suspicious package near the arena. It turned out to be clothes, and was the last major cause for alarm that night. After the attack, the UK’s terror threat level was raised from Severe to Critical, though it has fallen back to Severe as of May 27th. As a further response, several members of the British Parliament proposed an automatic death penalty for suicide bombers.

The attacker was determined to be 22 year old Salman Abedi, a British Muslim of Libyan Descent. Well, at first, it was thought that Abedi had been supported (ISIS even claimed responsibility for the attack), but after a raid on his apartment, and further investigation, it was determined that he was largely acting alone. It is certainly possible that he sympathized with ISIS and their goals though.

Whatever the precise motives behind it, the bombing was a tragedy, and we hope it won’t be repeated.

Earlier this month, President Trump fired the Director of the FBI, James Comey, in a move that has proven to be very questionable and controversial. In the days immediately following the incident, a number of conflicting stories emerged, from many people involved, muddying the truth further and further.

The choice caused backlash from both the Republican and Democratic parties, as well as many Americans, some of whom suspect that Comey was fired due to his investigating Russia, and President Trump’s potential connections to them. In fact, a recent poll by Quinnipiac University showed that a majority of Americans, more than fifty percent, do not believe his story about the firing, and think that he is abusing the powers of his office.

At first, the White House claimed rather straightforwardly that Trump was acting on the recommendations of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Supposedly, Comey was fired due to the way he had handled an investigation into Hillary Clinton. Later, however, the president rejected this version of events and instead stated that he had fired Comey himself, and that he had been losing confidence in the Director of the FBI since taking office in January.

What actually happened, at this point, is up in the air, but something else that lends a new perspective to the story is Comey’s own version of events, which is that he refused to pledge his loyalty to the president, instead promising his honesty, when pressed at a dinner party.

Many Americans are of the belief that Trump asked Comey to stop investigating possible ties between National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Russia, and by proxy, between Russia and the Trump Administration. These ties have been a cause of great concern, since before Trump was elected, due to rumors of Russians manipulating the election to get Trump into office.

On April 23, 2017, a California family of 4 were kicked off a Delta flight en route from Maui to Los Angeles. Brittany and Brian Schear from Huntington Beach, CA boarded a Delta flight with their two small children. Issues began when the family was asked to give up their two-year-old son’s, Grayson, seat. The family refused, seeing as they had payed for the seat they didn’t see a reason to give it up.

The Schears originally purchased the ticket for their 18-year-old son Mason, but then decided to send him home early so their 2-year-old could have a seat. The family had explain the situation to the ticket agent and the ticket agent accommodated the families needs and arranged for the four of them to sit together.

A flight attend had ask the Schears to give up their 2-year-old’s seat, and when they refused the Delta flight attendant demanded they give up the seat. Again refusing, the family was then threatened with jail time and having their child put in foster care.

Brittany Schear began filming the encounter on her cellphone. You can hear the flight attention repeatedly asking them to move their child, and Brian clearly distraught and trying to stay calm and reason with the Delta staff. You can hear a female employee say as the Schears refused to exit the plane, “You have to give up the seat or you’re going to jail, your wife is going to jail and they’ll take your kids from you.”  While Brian told a Delta staff member, “You’re saying you’re gonna give that away to someone else when I paid for that seat? That’s not right. You need to do what’s right. I bought the seat and you need to just leave us alone.”

After The video was released Delta responded saying, “We are sorry for the unfortunate experience our customers had with Delta, and we’ve reached out to them to refund their travel and provide additional compensation. Delta’s goal is to always work with customers in an attempt to find solutions to their travel issues. That did not happen in this case and we apologize.”