General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Passengers watched killing on Metro car. Should they have intervened? [View all]Glassunion
(10,201 posts)There are no two situations that are identical. None. There are a lot of assumptions on the attack, and quite a bit of speculation. There are so many questions that would need to be answered to even know if you could have done something. Some of these posts make it sound like a bad guy jumped on a train and started murdering someone while the passengers simply stood in a semi-circle of shock and fear... This is not the case. Of the 5 witnesses that we know of, where were they sitting in relation to the attack? How long did it take before it escalated from the confrontation to the assault? How long did the actual assault last (there is only 2 minutes between those two stops)? What is the actual makeup of the passengers (age, height, weight, ailments)? Did all of the seating offer a view of the attack? Did everyone on the train have an accurate assessment of the situation?
One person who was on the train did not know that there was an attack happening, until another passenger ran past them. His initial assessment of the confrontation was that it was just a fight, so he simply stood up and hit the call button to alert the driver. In that time it took him to stand up and press the button, the attacker was already there with his knife in this guys face. The attack was over for the time being. The bad guy then robs the elderly couple. Then right before the train stopped at the next station, he attacked the victim laying there one more time before quickly exiting the train.
So, given the situation, I would begrudge no one on that train for their actions. Nor would I say that I would have, or would not have done anything.