Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police by Martin Gansberg (BA First Year/BBS I)

 Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police by Martin Gansberg  

Author’s Introduction

Ø  American writer, Martin Gansberg, was born in 1920 and died in 1995.

Ø  He was a reporter and editor for the New York Times for forty-three years.

Ø  The article, Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police, written for the Times two weeks after the 1964 murder is recounted.

Ø  This article helped Gansberg earn an award for excellence from the Newspaper Reporters Association of New York.

Ø  Gans berg’s thesis statement, though not explicitly stated, still retains its power.

Vocabularies

1. Stalk- unwanted and/or repeated observation by an individual or group toward another
2. Adjacent- bordering/nearby
3. Distraught- Deeply upset and agitated
4. Baffles- totally perplex
5. Punctuated- stopped
6. Apprehensive- Anxious or fearful
7. Staid- Quiet/respectable/serious
8. Sheepishly- Embarrassed as by consciousness of fault
9. Slain- To kill by violence
10. Shrugged- Ignorance
11. Homicide- Unlawful killing of one person by another
12. Deliberation- Long and careful consideration

Themes- the author addresses and his opinions on this topic

Martin Gansberg's goal in writing this essay is to persuade readers to make changes in our society's mindset on public safety. His intended audience was anyone in general, especially those who may witness violent disputes between other people. He elaborates on this theme by providing a real homicide scenario that occurred in a narrative.

Background on the Kitty Genovese Murder Case

The events described here occurred on March 14, 1964, at a time when modern American culture was going through a difficult transition. The relatively peaceful 1950s were giving way to more troublesome times: the civil rights movement was causing social unrest in the South and northern inner cities; the Vietnam War was intensifying; President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated only four months earlier; and violent imagery was becoming more prevalent in popular culture. Kitty Genovese's terrible, senseless death—and, more importantly, her neighbors' tardy response to her calls for help—became a national and even global emblem for what was thought to be a developing social problem. Some of the information mentioned by Gansberg has recently come under scrutiny. For instance, the New York Times acknowledges that Ms. Genovese was the victim of only two attacks, not three. The first attack may have been less severe than initially reported. The second attack may have taken place in the lobby of the apartment building, where neighbors would not have been able to see Genovese.

Summary

Martin Gansberg, a New York Times author, claims that society should be more involved in acting when witnessing violence or life-threatening encounters between other people in his narrative essay Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police. He elaborates on this theme by providing a real homicide/murder scenario that occurred in a short story. The goal of Martin Ginsberg's essay was to urge readers to change how society views public safety. His target audience was everyone, but particularly anyone who might witness violent altercations between other people.

Author's opinion

Martin Gansberg wrote this essay primarily to persuade readers that society should do more to protect other citizens. He began his essay by telling a story as a flashback of the encounter, then resuming the story. He strongly believes that when witnesses saw the attacker try to kill the victim, people should have acted immediately. He also provides evidence for this claim by quoting authoritative figures, specifically the detectives' feedback. Gansberg did a great job using his format of a brief narrative based on a true event, then getting his thesis across from the murder case, and he was very informative when providing the details and descriptions of what caused this tragic death of an innocent victim. He emphasized that each of the provided responses dealt with each of the witnesses not wanting to get involved with the situation.

Should the 38 individuals be held responsible (i.e., share the blame for this crime)?

Naturally, the neighborhood should be held responsible since they witnessed or heard the entire incident but did nothing. They were given only two straightforward jobs, thus I think they ought to be held accountable. Either to make a police call or to assist her. They all remained indoors and took no action. Some of the subjects claimed that they weren't helping because they were fearful, lazy, or unsure of their motivations. I'm also upset because someone called after the murder had been committed.

Benefits/costs of being a Good Samaritan from this essay:

Benefits:

Ø   Police caught who was the murderer.

Ø   Neighbors were not punished.

Costs:

Ø  Woman was killed.

Ø  Neighbors didn't give a good explanation.

Ø  38 neighbors didn't call the police.

Analysis

Thirty-eight who observed murder but didn't notify the police, an essay by Martin Gansberg, is about a singular incident. I doubt that something like this occurs frequently; typically, individuals would contact the police or assist the victim in some way. But regrettably, there are moments when people can be quite icy or even nasty, as in this instance. Some people simply don't care about what is going on around them, even if someone needs assistance or cooperation. This is more common in large cities where people are too busy to stop and consider what would be the right thing to do and simply don't want to get involved for fear of getting into trouble. Small communities have more responsive residents, making it less probable that something like this would occur. Crime and violent scenes that people frequently encounter on television, the internet, and in movies are other powerful factor. People who are accustomed to watching something on television constantly treat it like another program in real life and simply observe without taking any action; some of them even become anticipatory about how it will all turn out.

"For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding persons in Queens watched a killer stalk and knife a woman in three different attacks in Kew Gardens," begins Martin Ginsberg's piece, "Thirty-eight who saw murder and didn't contact the police." However, it doesn't imply that they were present for the entire victim's murder, as they might have been in an arena. Little exaggeration is used by the author to dramatize what had occurred. Although it might not be true, the author's position is expressed. It demonstrates his rage, disappointment, and condemnation.

A little exaggeration, distortion, or misrepresentation can occur even though writers especially reporters have an ethical obligation to be truthful to articulate their positions and points of view. What counts is how much and exactly what has been skewed. For instance, the author says that the woman was the target of three murder attempts. If, in fact, the victim was killed during the initial attack and the murderer fled afterward but the author adjusted the narrative to make it seem more dramatic, it would be a very serious story distortion.