The Genovese Syndrome

Hello once again, hope everyone is doing well today. For this weeks topic I will be discussing The Genovese Syndrome. Some of you may all ready be aware of what The Genovese Syndrome is and some of you may not, so I will give a brief background on it. This syndrome was first discussed after an article was put out by Martin Gansberg detailing the odd scenario surrounding a young woman’s (Kitty Genovese) murder. The writing prompt I have chosen to follow asks me to write a ten-sentence summary on the events in the article by Gansberg.

The article first starts out by stating exactly the events that took place on the night of Kitty Genovese’s murder. Kitty has just gotten off work at a bar, it is about 3:30 in the morning, and she is walking from her car to her apartment in Kew Gardens, NY. She is encountered by a man on the street who then assaults and stabs her, Kitty yells out for help, waking up multiple neighbors in the vicinity. One man even leans out his window and tells the assailant to leave her alone, the assailant then flees. But none of the neighbors actually go outside to help or call the police, and let me remind that Kitty has been stabbed on the street and is still begging for help. The man comes back, continues to brutally assault Kitty, and then even more neighbors wake up, once again scaring away the assailant, but still no one calls the police. During the few moments she had to try and escape, Kitty Genovese is able to crawl or limp to her apartment. Gensberg then reports that the assailant comes back for a third time breaking down not one but two separate apartment doors before finding Kitty again and essentially finishing off the job. Kitty’s next door neighbor finally calls the police at about 4 a.m., the police arrive about two minutes later but it was too late. You may be wondering why on earth did these people, who could clearly see this woman in distress, not call the police until almost thirty five minutes had elapsed? When asked about it most said “I don’t know” or “I didn’t want to get involved, or let my spouse get involved” and so on and so on. The police reported that if some one, anyone had simply just called them that this young woman may not be today. That is the short version of the article, if you have any more interest on the subject I highly recommend looking up what we now believe is the thinking behind why people sometimes act this way during emergencies.