Today, I became a primary witness to an assault. While sitting at my desk, I heard arguing outside. This is not uncommon with how many people live in such a small area. I looked out my window behind my desk and saw two individuals arguing in the alley. At first I dismissed it, but I still wanted to be aware, so I left my headphones off. A few minutes later, I heard loud screaming, and noticed these two individuals were further down the alley (less visible to me), along with another individual. One of the initial pair, along with the help of the third individual, began attacking the other person in the inital pair. Then I could hear the person being attacked yelling "no, stop, please stop, no" over and over. So I picked up my phone, dialed 911, and it stopped. I reported the event, and in giving my report, the two attackers walked back up the alley where I could better see them, which allowed me to provide a physical description of both. Once I got off the phone, I took pictures as well. A few moments later, I began to hear sirens, and the attackers started to walk away. I went outside, saw where they went, and waited for the police to arrive. Once the police arrived, I explained the scenario again (in much more detail, and I'm not sharing details here for the sake of privacy). In the middle of giving my statement, a resident nearby walked up to ask and asked if I had called about the fight. I said I had, and the resident proceeded to tell the police and myself that the person who was attacked was safe inside this resident's house. The police thanked me several times for calling, as did the resident. The police had my contact information, so when they went to talk to the resident and person attacked, I went back inside. This event led me to think of the bystander effect.
The Bystander Effect is also well known as a diffusion of responsibility. It is the mindset that in a crisis, someone else will contact the authorities, or step in to intervene. They disassociate themselves from the situation, sometimes with the mindset of it not being their problem. Other reasons for this thought process would be thinking someone else will take care of it, or someone known to the victim will step in. The Bystander Effect is what occurs when you hear on the news of a tragic event occurring and think to yourself "why didn't somebody call the cops before it got to this point"? It is likely that they didn't call because of the Bystander Effect.
When I first learned about this, I made a promise to myself that if I was ever a witness to something, I wouldn't brush it off with the idea that someone else will take care of it. I promised myself that I would be the someone else that others were counting on. If I were ever in a situation where I needed help, I would hope and pray that someone was getting help for me. If it was my family member, or my friend, I wouldn't want them to be even worse off because witnesses didn't want the responsibility, for whatever reason they may have. Often, the Bystander Effect is a subconscious response, quite similar to the fight or flight instinct. In these types of scenarios, I know that if I hadn't done anything, I would have been safe. But I would have spent the rest of the day wondering what happened to that girl, and wondering if she was okay. Right now, I'm sitting here typing this and wondering if either of the attackers were at all associated with the drug dealers that hang out on this block, and if they saw me, or knew I was involved. Some people might wonder why I would put myself in that situation.
If it was your child being attacked by two other people, wouldn't you hope someone nearby would step in to keep it from getting any worse? If it was your child, would you say "it's okay that you didn't call the cops because there's drug dealers in this area"? No. I can guarantee you wouldn't. If it was your child being attacked, you would hope and pray that somebody else stepped in to keep them safe.
The next time you witness something, make an effort to be that Somebody Else that others are counting on.
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