Passing by Prospect, driving on 31st Street, I saw two men (one black, the other white), engaged in a confrontation. The white man started attacking the black man as my girlfriend and I went through the intersection. I called 911. I was put on hold, listening to a voice repeating over and over, "You have reached 911. All operators are on call. Please do not hang up and redial. It will delay your call. Stay on the line. Your call will be answered by the next available operator. Thank you."
We waited at the end of the next block and watched the fight from the distance. I saw the fight clearly defined in the street lights. As the two men fought, the sixteen people waiting for the bus laughed and cheered on the scuffle. When the fight moved into the bus stop shelter, the people just moved off the benches and waited for the fight to head back out to the sidewalk.
When the two men moved away from the shelter, many of the people calmly sat back on the benches and continued to laugh at the fight. We started to drive back toward the fight, which came to an end before we got through the green light. It ended with the black man's head stomped on three times and his limp body lying face-down on the corner of 31st Street and Prospect.
When I got out of the car, someone gave me a sock, which I wrapped around his head. While I held his head, wrapped in the sock, with the blood pouring under my feet and seeping through the cracks of the bricks, I could only deduce that the fight broke out because the white man ("Chicken Man"), who was drunk, wanted change for chicken. The black man ("Change Man") needed to take the bus, and only had enough change for the bus, so he did not give Chicken Man change.
When Change Man denied Chicken Man change more than a few times, the fight was on. There was only one call to the police (mine), and by the time a police car came, Change Man was already down on the ground, blood pouring from multiple wounds to his head onto the corner of the street.
When the police showed up and the ambulance took Change Man away, a fireman asked a police officer, "Do you want us to wash off the blood?" The officer responded, "Why? It's Prospect."
This is just one of many incidents in which the people leave, no one wants to be a witness, and the police are not concerned with the blood on the street or the people who are involved. The mentality of the people in the city seems to be "fend for yourself and to hell with everyone else."
Since I started living in this city, I have seen incidents happen time after time in which a person is left lying alone on the street, with no help except when a person may happen to call 911 because they are "annoyed" by the person being on the street. I notice that people are willing to ignore the fact that there is a person lying there with no one helping them or watch as people dig through the injured person's pockets because the person has been beaten so badly that he or she cannot stop the thief. The more I see these incidents, the more I wonder whether the conveniences of the city are really worth all the trouble.
In the small towns I used to run around in, there always seemed to be a more calming atmosphere. When a situation arose where someone was hurt badly by another, there were more than enough people there to help. The difference between the city I live in now and the small towns I hung around when I was younger is that the people in the towns helped. They helped in any way they could; not all of them, but more than the 0% that helped at 31st and Prospect.
Group after group in the cities walk around injured people or check out wrecks but do not stop to help. I thought that people were supposed to help one another. I've seen people stop for an injured dog or cat in the city more than I've seen them stop for another human being.
As I notice the police laughing and chatting while watching the homeless beat one another senseless around Westport, I wonder if they could have stopped this from happening, or if they're too busy enjoying their conversation to bother.
As people cheer on fights, laugh at the injured, and step over the bleeding, I think that if it was me, I would want someone to help me. The mentality for the city should be changed into a more concerned, caring one, more willing to help people than to ignore their strife. If no one helps, then people lose hope and no one cares about anyone else.
If you cannot walk on the streets because you are afraid that you might be the next person lying there with no help, think that maybe if you help someone, you can help to change the way people perceive the city.
Tell us what you think. Write Spectrum at editor@mcckc.edu.
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