Why indulge in psycho-babble when the answer is crystal-clear:

The onlookers saw what was going on; but none of them wanted to get involved. Good or bad that's what happened.

From Minneapolis chatboard Mnspeak:

"A rather large group of Somalis moved to our area a few years ago, with many kids in the school system. Group had largely come direct from Somalia, direct from warlord-heaven, direct from an area where nothing, no one was safe from the gangs. My then-sixth-grade son's eventual friend has four seriously-scary stab-and-slash scars - of a size people can die from - all from being casually knifed by bigger kids having fun. Awful, horrid, unspeakable place.

So they get here, they all end up living close together, and they become almost 1/6 of the student body of a couple of the schools. My kids report that the Somali kids act just like they're still in the war zone - very clannish and group-protective, violent, usually armed. The other major "wow" factor for our kids is how the males treat the females. They beat 'em. I mean, they seriously beat 'em, daily, in groups, for sport, and call it "training", and "submission."

Now, a couple of years later, most of those kids have figured out they don't need to act like they acted in Somalia, because no one here is trying to kill them off, and no one here puts up with the beating-the-girls shit. They're generally nice people - at about the same proportion as all the people who were here before them, unsurprisingly. But there are many Somalis throughout the cities who've not yet seen, or accepted, the peaceful possibilities here compared to back home, and so they're still violent and clannish and horridly abusive to women.

So, the women in the building probably did nothing out of fear, and the men figured it was his business and they'd probably get knifed or shot if they made a call.

»» Submitted by »»» bobby_b at 10:18 PM on August 23"

Whether they were damaged good from Somalia, or just indifferent scum, regardless of the why, what happened in that building is competely unacceptable.

If the people there are too ignorant too know what to do, hopefully there will be fallout from this and they will learn. If they are indifferent, then they are hopeless.

It's obvious to me, at least, that the bystanders were scared to get attacked themselves. They probably freaked out a little when they saw the attack and tried to rationalize it away because seeing something like that is traumatic. Or they were just scared to get hurt themselves. Or they truly didn't care... In any case, it's no excuse.

What we're seeing here is an unwillingness to put ourselves on the line for strangers. Get to know your fucking neighbors, people. This is a prime example of people being selfish jackasses. You gotta rise above the impulse to just drive on by if you want to be a DECENT HUMAN BEING. Period.

I mean, are we so afraid of being "nosy" that we won't try to help a RAPE victim?

This is absurd. I saw a guy hit a woman on the side of the freeway once, and I called the goddamn highway patrol, becaue WHO KNOWS what was going on, but if she was in trouble I wasn't gonna just drive on by. Took maybe five minutes.

Or there was this time an old man in front of me on the freeway was driving erratically and way too slow, like 30 mph in a 60 zone, so I tailed him until the cops showed up. Who I called. NOT THAT HARD, and the right thing to do. Whatever happened to helping one's fellow man?

The people who saw this and didn't do anything have blood on their hands. Plain and simple. I hope they think about this every day for the rest of their lives and feel the shame of it.

A few years ago, there was a famous alleged rape at a fraternity house that was video taped. I saw a documentary based on the incident at a film festival before legal issues stopped it's distribution.

The one thing I took away from the documentary is that unless you saw the moment the victim was beaten, or heard a distinct and unmuffled cry for help, it's difficult to distinguish consensual sex from rape. It's well known that cries of pain and pleasure can be difficult to distinguish, ask any child who thought his mother was being hurt during sex. And bruises are no proof, I've seen women bruised from consensual sex as well.

I'm not saying that explains this incident, because I don't see enough facts in the story. But it seems reasonable to me.

Bullshit.

I have called several times when I lived near people who were engaging in domestic violence. I could hear the screams. I think there is just no excuse for not calling or going for help. These days most people have a cell phone if not a landline. These bystanders in this case are callous cowards. I have no use for people like that and there is NO EXCUSE.

the victim probably said the name of the perpetrator, who she had met earlier at a friend's apartment. i have read several studies demonstrating that NO ONE intervenes if the woman says the man's name.

yelling "help" is more effective when a victim looks someone in the eye and orders him or her, personally, to help. otherwise diffusion of responsibility can occur.

by and large, the best way to get people's attention, however, is to yell "fire" followed by "call the police".

this is a sad reflection of our attitudes towards abuse and violence. i guess some part of us thinks it's "ok" for someone to abuse his or her spouse or partner.

Nobody took action because nobody other than the victim defined the situation as an emergency. The social sciences have demonstrated pretty well, in a variety of ways, that our public behaviors are generally directed by hierarchical social organization, and we generally do not do anything that calls attention to ourselves unless we can do so under the protective authority of another person, organization, institution, etc.

The people who stayed in their apartments were very likely feeling some form of distress over the situation, but they just didn't have permission to be involved. I'm convinced that if only one of them had had yelled "That woman needs help" or even "Something is wrong here" that most everybody would have sprung into action.

I think it is a useful insight to remember: that the very first step in helping anybody in distress is verbal. The very first thing you have to do is just speak up, define the situation as an emergency. It's not that people won't do anything otherwise, it's that they can't.