Houston Homeless Man Lay Dead For A Day As Passersby Took Pictures Of Him, Did Nothing To Help

[True_Blue]

Source: HuffingtonPost

A homeless man in Houston was left dead on the sidewalk for close to a day as pedestrians walked by, doing nothing to help. Some even took photos of his lifeless body with their cellphones.

"If they just had used their cell phone to make a call instead of a picture, perhaps this man could still be alive today," Sgt. Brian Harris of the Houston Police Department, told KHOU. "I would like to say our city is better than that, I know our city is better than that."

Police said the man, who was discovered dead by a deputy constable on Tuesday, likely died of natural causes. His identity has not been determined.

The behavior of passersby in this case could have something to do with the bystander effect, a phenomenon in which people fail to come to a person's aid because they assume someone else will.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/01/houston-homeless-man-dead-days_n_4191746.html

[question everything]

1. Recently, every major story has people "clicking" their cell phones

and I want to shout at them - is this what is so important?

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Some major stories have only become so because a bystander captured an image or video

that was contrary to the official story/explanation/claims.

Police videos primarily, but not exclusively. It is possible to aid others AND document the situation.

[warrant46]

14. Dead Bodies in the steets----Hey didn't this happen in New Orleans" ?

[snooper2]

2. You think that is bad-

Watch this video of a woman hitting a man who hung himself with a car!


happens 1:40 in video---

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. I would have had a heart attack.

I have hypertension and cannot stand to be scared like that.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Some people just drive past him, brushing against him.

Although this prank COULD turn people off from helping anyone in a similar situatoin.

[uppityperson]

19. I've a friend who hung himself. If I caught someone doing this, would be pissed.

[Auntie Bush]

20. When we were kids...we made a dummy stuffed with leaves...put it

lying in the center of the road with a rope over a limb and pulled it up suddenly just in front of an approaching car. What a fun experience! However, we got stopped by a cop...everyone ran but my brother got caught. He was threatened with arrest but ended up just getting a good tongue lashing as to how dangerous a prank like that could be and could have cause an accident. Needless to say...we never did that again...but have enjoyed telling the story to this day. lol

[Bernardo de La Paz]

24. How does a man hang himself with a car?

Perhaps you meant to write "a woman in a car hit a man who had hung himself"?

[Renew Deal]

30. He was blocking traffic

What about the guy that checked his pockets?

[beerandjesus]

3. They were probably waiting for him to pull himself up by his bootstraps.

[Auntie Bush]

23. LOL! nt

[Enthusiast]

61. Yes. He was in danger of becoming a moocher.

The worst of all possible outcomes.

[Democrats_win]

4. What do you expect from the people who gave us GWB and Ted Cruz?

Or Rick..uh...uh....oops! Perry.

[Faux pas]

15. No hearts

deep in the heart of tex-ass.

[awoke_in_2003]

44. Houston also elected an openly gay mayor...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annise_Parker

This same thing could easily happen in NYC or Cleveland- assholes are everywhere.

[babylonsister]

51. Great point.

[texanwitch]

5. I don't understand this behavior.

Is is so hard to call 911 if someone is on the ground and not moving.

Maybe you don't want to touch the body but call 911.

One day these assholes may need help and no one will help them.

I was walking my dog along the bayou and found a man passed out on the grass.

I called 911, and then checked to see if he was alive.

The fire station was only a few blocks away, the poor man had a stroke.

He is ok now because I stopped to help.

I hope someone would step up and help me.

What goes around comes around.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. If you do call 911, be alert for a really stupid response.

Came to work in the Miission District in San francisco, at 7:30 am, a man was laying unconscious on the sidewalk by the front door.
I checked to make sure he was breathing, then called 911 from my office inside the door.
Reported an unconscious man, breathing but not moving, not responding to voice or shoulder shaking.
Operator told me to give him CPR!!!!
I was CPR trained and certified annually, the guy was breathing....Duh.

Fast ambulance response time tho. They shook him for a few minutes till he moved a leg, then they loaded him into the ambulance.

[SunSeeker]

22. Wow. That 911 operator is an idiot. Never give CPR to someone who has a pulse and is breathing.

Good that you called 911. Hope that idiot operator did not dissuade you from calling in the future.

[texanwitch]

25. The fire station was so close by, the response time was quick.

I could see he was breathing.

He was warm, he did not respond when I tried to talk to him.

I had CPR training several times.

It has come in handy.

Everybody should take it.

I am friends with both him and his family.

The dog knew something was wrong and ran ahead to the guy.

She was the hero in this.

[happyslug]

60. Bystander effect only comes into play with non-locals (Shoppers are the most common).

In situation where they is no one else and that is clear, most people will offer a stranger assistance.

The other big exception are locals. If you are in an area with high amount of traffic, most people will step over the body of someone needing help EXCEPT if the person being asked to give help live in the area. In such cases the locals help anyone who is in need of help.

Now, the local exception only applies to situation where the person in need of help is in the local area. For example in the famous case from the 1960s, the victim was attacks NOT in the Apartment complex overlooking where she was attacked, but outside it, and thus NOT a "Local" area in the minds of the apartment dwellers.

Now, recent research has indicated that most of the people in the apartment saw nothing and could NOT have seen anything. The one person who did see the attacked called the Police, so it does NOT look to be a by-stander situation but in the popular mind it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

6. Human indecency at a new low.

Simply disgusting!

[KurtNYC]

8. We are a nation of spectators, trained to be helpless, useless voyers with compassion fatigue.

I did CPR in the lobby of busy office building on a guy who went down right in front of 100 people. People were stepping over us to get into the elevator. 98% said nothing and pretended not to notice. It was me and one other low level staffer who loosened his tie and belt and compared notes about how fast to do compressions, etc. We were talking to him. He was gone. When EMT came they hit him with the paddles 10 times. The guy blew his last breath into my face.

What I learned from that incident was don't assume other people will step up AND when YOU step up, you should point at other people and tell them what to do. DON'T say "someone call 911" -- instead say "YOU in the red tie, Call 911 now! Lady in the red dress go get lobby security now!"

[azurnoir]

11. My G-d what have we become?

it wasn't that many years ago when after Hurricane Katrina there was outrage because bodies were lying in street uncollected for a day, now this?!!??

[reddread]

16. a country that cant abide by the Human Rights Declaration we signed

Housing IS a human right.
People are left on the streets to suffer and die.
Big Sue died on the sidewalk outside the Poverello House, Fresno's big resource for the homeless.
IF they will let you in for a meal. They discriminate against "troublemakers" and people who associate with people they do not approve of.

http://fresnoalliance.com/wordpress/?p=4259

that is what kind of country.
Let us direct our outrage to some right wing cable programming.

[azurnoir]

29. sad truth people have become disposable

or maybe they were all along and that's why they're homeless in first place, there is no reason in reality, I think the housing actually exists but there is a mind-set that is so very afraid of someone getting "something for nothing" that for it some it seems preferable that people starve and die in the streets

[KatyMan]

36. Some people are on the streets because they want to be

Sad but true. My wife works with a segment of the population that has difficulties with housing, families, etc. There are times when the person will not stay in the shelters or assisted living homes. They choose the streets. This incident happened on the west side of downtown, where there are always "homeless" people around.

[reddread]

48. "some people say" that

as opposed to being in a warm home?
NOT LIKELY.
As opposed to being cooped up with dangerous folks?
Yeah, that is the truth.
Give them the homes they need, not the programs that fail to do anything
except move money into open pockets.
Sad but true?
not really.
Its called logic, and it will help us all evolve

[radhika]

13. Perfect symbol for the times we live in....n/t

[Brigid]

26. We have our thread winner.

It is a sad commentary.

[DeSwiss]

17. Bystander effect?

- Is that what they're calling a total loss of human decency these days? I'm not in the least surprised. This is the same way we let our government just lie there and die while everyone's assuming someone else will fix it.

K&R

[avaistheone1]

18. Sad, but not surprising in Republican Jesusland.

Texans probably looked at the man and wondered what he had ever done to deserve help.

Compassionate conservatism in action.

[texanwitch]

27. Not all of us.

This happens all over.

Not all Texans are like this, no more then any other place.

A lot of non Texans move here.

We have jobs.

[avaistheone1]

34. True, but you have more than your share of these types.

And they appear to dominate the political landscape there.

[PassingFair]

32. I have heard that Houston is a liberal town.

So you may have to rethink that.

[avaistheone1]

35. Evidently not liberal enough.

Who is in charge there anyways?

[PassingFair]

41. I'm glad you asked:Liberal Annise Parker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annise_Parker

You know, people walk past dead homeless people in New York, too.
Doesn't mean that New Yorkers are all stupid republicans.....

[texanwitch]

45. She is running again right now.

Third and last time.

She should win.

[Alameda]

54. I lived in NYC for 30 years and

many many times I passed by people laying in the streets. I always checked on them, but most the time they were passed out from drugs or booze. One time it was a decoy cop. I knocked on many windows with a Taxi driver sleeping in them with the engine running. People were annoyed at me for bothering them. It's hard to know what to do, but I still can't pass by someone laying down looking dead on the street, without checking.

[texanwitch]

42. Stuff like this happens in New York.

I know I was there for two months when I was in the Army.

I was waiting to go to Europe.

We had a lot of free time to explore the city.

I saw four people laying on ground, people walking past them.

It happens everywhere.

I would never say every one in New York was like this.

Like I said no everyone in Texas was born here, many move here.

They bring there attitudes with them.

This started in the 80's with Reagan in office.

Lots of people started to move here, lots.

Texas started to change then.

We did have republicans but they didn't run the state.

We had Bill Hobby for Lt. Gov for 18 years, a democrat.

In Texas the Lt. Gov runs the state, not the Governor.

It has been a slow and steady decline.

Our cities are liberal, very blue.

I am sad to read this happen in my city.

But to suggest everyone in Houston or Texas is like this isn't very nice.










I would never have walked by a person like that, never.

I am native born, for several generations.

Some people just don't give a damn, where ever they live.

[former9thward]

43. The classic case of bystanders ignoring their fellow human being occurred in New York City.

The stabbing murder of Kitty Genovese where she was stabbed and raped over a 30 minute period and neighbors ignored her screams.

[ScreamingMeemie]

46. This is not fair. Houstonian here. I got sucked into trying to help a stupid kid

in the grocery store doing the milk jug smash gag. In other words, he did it on purposed. I freaked out and tried to help. I'm sure I'm laughed at on video everywhere.

Sorry, person, but idiots and the unhelpful live in your city as well.

Thank you.

[JI7]

49. these type of things have happened in Blue States also

[Stevenmarc]

21. And this is why

as a photographer I completely despise the homeless shot, because people think is artsy and urban and gritty. It's a shot that needs a photographer that has the ability to show the humanity in their subject and they are few and far between, unfortunately there are too many talent-less snapshotists who better serve humanity if they stick to taking selfies and shots of their lunch to fulfill their Instagram fix.

[momrois]

55. Check out this guy's work

Fantastic! http://arnade.tumblr.com/

[Stevenmarc]

56. Thanks

I've followed him for a while now, he's one of the few that get it right.

[blkmusclmachine]

28. The only "life" worth anything in Texas is a clump of cells, the blastocyte.

But once born, it's just another worthless moocher sucking at the Government teat. So says Texas.

[ourfuneral]

31. The Sad Thing?

This could have (and has) happened in Anytown, USA.

[heaven05]

33. nothing surprises me anymore

just sad about the uncaring attitude that the meanness of this country has generated. See it and experience meanness and rudeness every time I go out nowadays. We're getting desensitized to all things violent and obscene.

[Isoldeblue]

37. Maybe some just thought,

"What's one less "taker"?" Guess that message is really taking deep root. Sad.

[cali]

38. Are we human?

"Pay my respects to grace and virtue. Send my condolences to good...."

[SoapBox]

40. I'm really not so sure.

That is VERY sad.

[maxsolomon]

39. I don't know the specifics of this case, but sometimes you can't tell

In the mornings, I see homeless sleeping under layers of tarps and blankets. I see homeless slumped over in doorways under thick clothing, hoods pulled down tight. Sometimes, you can't tell if there's a human being in there, let alone if they're alive, dead, or in need of help.

I am NOT going to go check for a pulse and have a schizophrenic pull a knife on me. Like one did on a cop outside my office last Friday. I'm not stupid.

I'm also not taking a picture, though. There's nothing arty about destitution.

[JEFF9K]

47. I would make the call. ...

... Better that too many people call, rather than too few.

[juanrodriguezn248]

50. Some people are just devoid of any common courtesy whatsoever

I bet the asses taking photos of the poor deceased man are Randian, Tea Party types. The kind of people who feel that the dead homeless guy is a "good-for-nothing moocher", or something like that. Sickening...

[babylonsister]

52. Maybe no one knew he was dead? Anyone check a pulse? nt

[Th1onein]

53. Yeah, Sgt. Brian Harris, speak for yourself. You and yours are busy killing people.

[BootinUp]

57. Thats fuckin depressing. nt

[johnlucas]

58. This story serves as a warning to NOT act like these people did

A lot of people here are saying "I would NEVER do that" if they were in that situation.
I guarantee you many of you ignore other injustices every day without a thought.
It's easy to say it when you're not in the heat of the moment.

But we wouldn't have terms like "the bystander effect" if the rule was that people helped each other when someone was down.
Easy to say you wouldn't be like this but let's see how you act when put to the test.

People at heart are self-focused, selfish.
People at heart are also lazy.
And more people than not tend to follow the rule of the crowd.
So if the crowd ignores then that individual wanting to fit in & not stick out will do the same.

Maybe it's not a homeless man who died in the streets.
Maybe it's the workplace & a socially-shunned employee who has done nothing negative to anybody but is bullied verbally & professionally at the job.
Do you dare to stick up for that co-worker & stick out in the process potentially receiving his/her abuse?
Or do you bow your head & lay low for fear of angering the cliques which torment that co-worker?
Cliques that also including the bossess/managers themselves.
Do you stand up for that employee DIRECTLY in the face of the tormentors or do you wait until they're gone & speak supportive words to the co-worker then?
When they come back do you run & hide after that support?

Big game people talk. But only a few will walk.

Maybe this story teaches you & tests you to not become the callous crowd.
Maybe you will pay more attention to the downtrodden of EVERY kind & do it when it counts.
Openly Directly Publicly.

We'll see.
John Lucas

[gopiscrap]

59. that is so fucked up

[valerief]

62. I remember as a kid decades ago in Boston seeing homeless people in the streets.

They were everywhere. And lots more after Vietnam.

[Blue Diadem]

63. He was 1/2 naked, pants down yet no one even called for that. Take pictures instead.

They did say someone put a sweatshirt over him but still didn't call police. When did our world become so uncaring?

[RussBLib]

64. this happened about four blocks from my house

..and that is an area that I frankly do not traverse, hardly ever. Not because it's "dangerous" or anything like that, just because it is rather out of my typical travels in Houston.

We do have a fair number of homeless on the streets of Houston. And yes, some are there by choice, believe it or not. I have actually talked to a few who told me that to my face. I've worked in food banks and homeless shelters now and then and the numbers are almost staggering. It's estimated that Houston is "home" to about 30,000 homeless. Thanks to the recent reduction in food stamps, the food banks are going to be really straining, but that's another post.

There are frankly so many sleeping outside here that it becomes somewhat the norm. The weather is usually decent enough to sleep outside, even in the winter. Most seem to be actually sleeping, and you don't find many people who will check on a guy sleeping on a sidewalk or under an alcove. If they are naked, bloody, or splayed in an awkward position, people will generally stop to inquire. But if it just looks like they're sleeping, most people won't stop. Especially downtown and in the immediate surroundings, which used to be where the poor would gather, as the wealthier all moved out from downtown. Old "Freedman's Town" in the "Fourth Ward" still has many old shotgun houses inhabited by poor people, scattered next to three-story gleaming town homes. Gentrification is happening all over Houston inside Loop 610, close to downtown.

My thought is that the area where this guy was found is frequented by a lot of young people. Midtown has become a mecca for new bars, clubs and restaurants. On the weekends it is crawling with young adults looking for a good time. Most have their heads down, staring at their phones. Or they're already drunk, looking to fuck with something. I think seeing homeless people is unusual for these "kids" and they'd be just as likely to snap a picture on their phone as they would be to just walk on by or look the other direction.

It's sad, but not really that surprising. Many of these homeless don't have family anywhere. Many of them have family but their family doesn't know where they are. Many have mental issues. The State of Texas shut down most of their state-run mental facilities several years ago and literally dumped those people on the streets of Texas' big cities. (GOP in action).

I'm sure that in the wake of this story, people will pay more attention, for awhile. Then they will go back to their normal habits of looking the other way. This is life in the big city these days.

[jsr]

65. They saw him as an object