Well filming and not helping, how can you?

A Wednesday evening in Philadelphia in America. A woman takes the subway, maybe home or who knows, she might be going to a friend. She is probably even a little relieved that she is not alone on the subway, I can imagine. It is nice to travel late at night not alone. Until she is harassed by a 35-year-old man and no one intervenes. The woman in Philadelphia was harassed for 40 minutes and raped for eight minutes according to surveillance footage. Not a single passenger calls 911 or does anything. What do they do? Film everything. At moments like this, you just lose all trust in the world.

Have we reached a point where we do not intervene but do film? Sensation over humanity? This woman is a daughter, maybe a sister, who knows a mother, a human being of flesh and blood. Like you and me. All those fellow passengers in that carriage know such a woman. They drink coffee with her, work with her, and who knows, they might sit at the same table at Christmas. What if they were the ones or a loved one and no one intervened? But people were able to make a video.

You see something happening before your eyes that cannot be, something that this woman will carry with her for the rest of her life. What am I saying? If this woman did not completely lose her trust in humanity that evening, then I thank God on my bare knees. I would completely understand it. After 40 minutes, a new passenger got on the subway. The traveler immediately saw that something was wrong and called the police. So it was not a question of whether something was wrong, it turns out.

90 percent of the Dutch find it inappropriate to film at an accident or incident, research by the Red Cross shows. Yet almost no one intervenes when it happens. I can only wonder why you do not call for help when you can apparently press record. How can you?

The Philadelphia police are investigating whether they can prosecute the fellow passengers of the woman.