Woman raped on Philadelphia train as bystanders did nothing, police say

Absolutely horrifying this woman was raped. “Best Wishes” for her quick recovery from her injuries and hoping they will do everything to get her appropriate counseling for this traumatic event in her life.

At the very least, all they had to do was call 9-1-1 and they can't even do that

At least in the US if you call 911 from your cell phone they know who you are and you will become a witness to a crime. Once the homies know you are a witness against one of their other homies you might get some visitors.

I'll add something else. Twice in my life I have helped stop crimes. Once it was stopping a burglary in progress and we managed to get all the burglars arrested (foot chase, tackled them). Another time many years later I helped break up an assault on grocery store staff after a customer went off on them for refusing to sell beer after 2:00 am. In both occasions the number and inconvenience of all the many required hearings I had to attend, the minimal punishments meted out and the fact that nobody even bothered to say thank you for helping stop a crime has forced me to come to the same conclusion as those train riders. Like ol' Sargent Schultz used to say on "Hogan's Heros", I know nothing - NOTHING. Crime happened? Didn't see nuthin".

Isn’t that Philadelphia already a well known no-go city like Chicago, Atlanta and such? If you are or go there you know what to expect, and if you are not massively equipped and prepared, leave it while you still can.

Oh good grief. Where do these stories come from. I have traveled to all three cities without an entourage of body guards and nothing bad happened. All three cities, like just about any big city in the world have areas that are beautiful and trendy, and other areas that are run down and sometimes dangerous.

At the very least, all they had to do was call 9-1-1 and they can't even do that

Isn’t that Philadelphia already a well known no-go city like Chicago, Atlanta and such? If you are or go there you know what to expect, and if you are not massively equipped and prepared, leave it while you still can.

 so it is safe to just not get involved rather than to get hit with a possible lawsuit.

In big cities people are probably more worried about getting shot than sued. You don't know if that rapist has homies willing to do you violence if you dime them. They are very much not above some hands on witness tampering. They might not be on the train with him, but as soon as your name pops up as a witness, or worse yet the accuser, they show up at your home or maybe where you work. Happens all the time actually.

Horrible, but in the world, we live in today people just don't want to take the chance in being sued or blamed or criticized for intervening, so it is safe to just not get involved rather than to get hit with a possible lawsuit.

“There were other people on the train who witnessed this horrific act, and it may have been stopped sooner if a rider called 911," the authority said.

That's what baffles me the most in such situations. I won't judge people for being too afraid to intervene (especially since it is not always possible without putting yourself into danger) but at least call the police...

Perhaps the bewildered bystanders shun to get themselves involved in such incident unnecessarily.

Nevertheless, a sick and decadent society tends to produce mentally sick and zombie people..

Doing the right thing is sometimes difficult to do. This was a young physically imposing man. But someone just has to step forward in a civilized society. I haven’t been put in this situation before - I hope I would do the right thing regardless of the consequences.

Fifty or sixty years ago people would have intervened and would not have had worried about the consequences.

Intervention can be very costly these days, and I don't mean only financially.