My good friend Robert Stacy McCain is incensed:
From the New York Post:
By Eileen AJ Connelly | October 16, 2021 | 2:39 PM EDT Updated 5:06 PM EDT
A homeless man raped a woman this week on a commuter train in suburban Philadelphia in full view of other passengers –who cops said didn’t lift a finger to help, or even dial 911, reports said.
The attack at around 10 p.m. Wednesday was captured on surveillance video that showed other people in the train car, according to Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt of the Upper Darby Police Department.
“Were they watching? I don’t know. Again, we’re still going through the video but there was a lot of people, in my opinion, that should’ve intervened. Somebody should’ve done something.,” Bernhardt said, Philadelphia’s CBS-3 reported.
“It speaks to where we are in society; I mean, who would allow something like that to take place? So it’s troubling.”
Bernhardt said it was a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority employee who called the cops to report that “something wasn’t right” with a woman aboard the train.
SEPTA police waiting at the next stop were able to “apprehend the suspect in the act,” an agency spokesman said in a statement, according to NBC-10 Philadelphia.
They arrested Fiston Ngoy, 35, who is believed to be homeless, the station reported.
Ngoy was charged with rape, aggravated indecent assault and related counts, police said.
He remains behind bars in lieu of 10% of $180,000 bail, Philadelphia’s ABC-6 reported.
Bernhardt said he is known to both SEPTA and Upper Darby police.
The woman, who did not know her attacker, was taken to a hospital. Bernhardt called her an “unbelievably strong woman” who provided police with a lot of information, The Associated Press reported.
“She’s on the mend,” Bernhardt said. “Hopefully she will get through this.”
SEPTA issued a statement calling the attack a “horrendous criminal act.”
“There were other people on the train who witnessed this horrific act, and it may have been stopped sooner if a rider called 911,” the authority said.
Or maybe it would have been stopped sooner if people had the courage to intervene physically. Were there no men on that train at all? We may eventually find out that there were some males on that train, but it’s obvious that none of them were actually men.
The Philadelphia Inquirer had an article on the assault, but, of course, the Inquirer would never publish the (alleged) rapist’s mugshot:
A rape occurred Wednesday night but riders did not report it, SEPTA said.
by Stephan Salisbury | Saturday, October 16, 2021
A woman was raped on the Market-Frankford Line on Wednesday night in a car with other passengers but none called 911.
Their failure to do that was noted by SEPTA in an unusual statement — and condemned by the police chief in Upper Darby, where the attack took place.
“There was a lot of people in my opinion that should have intervened, somebody should have done something,” Police Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt said. “It speaks to where we are in society and who would allow something like that to take place. So it’s troubling.”
In the statement Friday, the SEPTA agency said that “anyone witnessing an emergency” needed to report it immediately.
Report it immediately? How about take action to stop it?
Frank Herbert, in Dune, noted fear, and how fear had to be overcome. But our governments, federal and state and city, have spent the last year and a half trying to instill fear into the public, and it looks like they have succeeded: a train car full of people, and no one of them had the courage to intervene, to stop a rape being perpetrated right in front of them.
“The assault was observed by a SEPTA employee, who called 911, enabling SEPTA officers to respond immediately and apprehend the suspect in the act,” the agency said. ”There were other people on the train who witnessed this horrific act, and it may have been stopped sooner if a rider called 911.” . . . .
Bernhardt said the assault was caught entirely on surveillance video. Bernhardt said they are reviewing the footage, in part to look at the passengers.
Good, and I hope that tape is revealed, and every passenger, especially every male passenger, in that railcar is identified, by name and by photograph, and their information published, widely published, so that everyone knows who they are, and what they were too cowardly to do. I noted that neither story indicated that the (alleged) assailant was armed, with a knife or a firearm.
All it would have taken was one man, just one, to rally the other passengers to intervene and stop the assault, but no one did. Those people need to be publicly shamed, publicly humiliated, and the men males divorced by their wives.
The alleged assailant had been previously convicted of drug possession in 2015, and had been arrested both last year and this in both Philadelphia and Delaware County on charges that included public drunkenness, resisting arrest, and scalping tickets. The Defender Association of Philadelphia, which provides lawyers for people too poor to hire one, had been providing him with representation on the ticket scalping charge.
This crime happened not in Philadelphia, but in Delaware County, and if there’s any good at all in this, it’s that Mr Ngoy won’t be prosecuted by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who would give him a serious, serious! slap on the back of the hand, and maybe even a stern talking to.
There was a time in which, had this occurred then, the other men on that train would have rushed to the victim’s defense and beaten the assailant to a bloody pulp. But fear, fear! was upon them, upon a population cowed into masks and isolation and indifference.
