The Murder of Kitty Genovese

Catherine (Kitty) Genovese was brutally murdered on March 13th 1964 and it  can easily  be attributed to the concepts of  diffusion of responsibility and the bystander effect which made for great headlines in the New York Times but if one digs deeper into the story it was not 37 or 38 citizens of Kew Gardens New York that watched, listened and did nothing while ‘Kitty’ was attacked not once but twice, it was more like 6 or 7. And although some accounts made out that she was attacked 3 times it was just twice and the second was in a foyer virtually out of sight of these apathetic bystanders. 

After this story broke many pundits including the clergy called the incident an example of moral lethargy and the very respected Mike Wallace dubbed his story “The Apathetic American.”  It made for great press and the inhabitants of the tiny hamlet of Kew Gardens were vilified and many moved away and were characterized as callous, immoral and chickenhearted. Extreme examples always seem to be the tactic the American press and media use to make their stories sensational and melodramatic. The New York Times article painted Kitty’s murder as an urban horror, which it was but mislead the public as to what actually occurred.  Books, articles, songs, scripts and even songs were inspired by the false betrayal of how 38 witnesses watched their neighbor die. The Times based their story on a false police report, which later reported the discrepancy, but it was too late. 

It would seem that people didn’t want to get involved because some thought it was a lover’s quarrel even though in reality Kitty was in a committed relationship with another woman. Psychology studies that were spawned since the murder came to the conclusion that it was not callous indifference that kept neighbors from intervening but it was linked to confusion, uncertainty, fear and misapprehension that caused people not to pitch in this emergency.  

There was much good that came from this tragedy in that the 911 emergency telephone system was launched which in effect gave anonymity to those that otherwise might not get involved and the understanding of human psychology was greatly expanded. In a twist of fate the erroneous report in the Times was rather ironic in the fact that almost 50 years later the murder of Kitty Genovese is still being talked, read and written about (Rasenberger, J., 2006).