– TTK

I sense a psychological gap here.

The people who intervened short of jumping the blood-spattered psycho were driving somewhere, not looking for combat. They weren’t armed (thanks, California!), and they weren’t all friends who know they can trust each-other for backup. They were, in other words, both psychologically and materially unprepared for stopping a psycho-killer.

Some me a person who doesn’t jump in in those circumstances and I’ll show you almost everyone on Earth, and I’ll repeat that it’s easy to talk tough on the internet.

(And in fairness, like I said, I’m sure from their posts that many of Misha’s commenters are “rough men” as the famous poem speaks of - but most people aren’t, and it’s not reasonable to condemn the 23 year old woman to eternal damnation for not being a “rough man” and fulfilling the requirements such men put on themselves.)

Some of us are - maybe more than the average, and that is certainly something that would affect the outcome, at least to a matter of degrees.

But show me a person who can’t bring himself to jump on some goblin’s back in an attempt to save the life of a two-year-old being stomped to death in the street…

…and I’ll show you someone who deserves far worse than to be ‘castigated’.

‘Asking’ or ’suggesting’ that evil stop just isn’t enough - sometimes even ordinary people have to do something.

- MuscleDaddy

(Nor is the comparison to Genovese valid; Genovese died partially because the police didn’t take the calls seriously, and because she got up and moved out of sight before the killer came back to finish killing her. The idea that “people watched her get murdered and did nothing” is simply a myth.

The people here did call the police (who did take the call seriously, and came in a damned helicopter for maximum response time), and did try to deter the attacker, both verbally, and by looking for weapons to attack the obviously crazed murderer with.

Contra the commenters at Misha’s, whose smugness revolts me, I don’t blame the 23 year old woman who drove up for not physically engaging a violent psychotic, unarmed, or any of the others. Maybe Misha’s commenters are all trained martial artists or combat-hardened veterans, but random civilians are not psychologically prepared for mortal combat with a random psychotic who’s already trying to kill someone.

To castigate them and wish them eternally damned for that strikes me as at best greatly mistaken, and at worst horribly easy for someone who wasn’t there.)