the bystander effect

On March 13, 1964, as many as thirty-eight peopled witnessed the brutal murder and raping of a woman. Kitty Genovese was on her way home from work when a man came after her and began stabbing her. As she screamed for help the lights from nearby apartments came on and the people watched what was happening down below. Only one guy yelled down “leave that girl alone” causing the stabber to retreat. After the stabber had left, nobody called the cops or came down to help the girl. Kitty then began trying to make her way to her apartment and in the mean time the assailant had come back to finish what he had started. The people around still heard the screams coming from Genovese, but still no one had called the cops. Once the investigation began, cops found that some of the witnesses had assumed that somebody else had called the cops. As the investigation continued, the police were given many excuses from the witnesses but none of them really explained why nobody had called the cop...