TOPIC: Store Video Shows Customers Stepping Over Stabbing Victim

Article from FOXNews.com

WICHITA, Kansas — As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said. The June 23 situation, captured on the store's surveillance video, got scant news coverage until a columnist for The Wichita Eagle disclosed the existence of the video and its contents Tuesday. The video showed the 27-year-old Calloway struggling to her feet and collapsing three times without anyone helping her. Worse, one woman who stepped over Calloway four times while shopping eventually paused to snap a photo of her with a cell phone.
"It was tragic to watch," police spokesman Gordon Bassham said Tuesday. "The fact that people were more interested in taking a picture with a cell phone and shopping for snacks rather than helping this innocent young woman is, frankly, revolting." It took about two minutes for someone to call 911, he said. "This is one of the most disgusting examples of disregard for life I've ever seen," Bassham said of the video. "It is a very, very tragic video to watch. It was revolting to see this lack of humanity."
Calloway, 27, died later at a hospital. Two people -- Cherish M. McCullough and George R. Brown -- turned themselves in to police and were arrested in connection with the death. The district attorney's office will have to decide whether any of the shoppers could be charged, Bassham said. It was uncertain what law, if any, would be applicable. A state statute for failure to render aid refers only to victims of a car accident.
Eagle columnist Mark McCormick told The Associated Press he learned about the video when he called Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams to inquire about a phone call he had received from a reader complaining about a Police Department policy that requires emergency medical personnel to wait until police secure a crime scene before rendering aid. McCormick said Williams then unloaded on him about the shoppers in the stabbing case. Williams told the newspaper. "I could continue shopping and not render aid and then take time out to take a picture? That's crazy. What happened to our respect for life?"

SopeBocks: This is an example of the LACK of compassion we have for each other in this country. The violence we see no longer bothers us. We don't want to "get involved", so we step over victims and go about our business. As I've said many times before, we will reap what we sow -- and this is a prime example of what has been sewn through TV, movies, video games, music and the violence of the hip-hop culture. If you think I'm wrong, think about this -- even in countries where terrorist bombings are "regular" occurrence, citizens don't step over dying victims to buy a candy bar. They HELP those victims. In those cultures, there are NO Manhunt or GTA video games, Die Hard movies, hip-hop gangstas nor any The Shield style TV shows. If we do not cherish life, it will not have any value.
When is America going to wake up?!? Compassion is a basic tenant of civilized society. IF we lose it (and we're well on the way to that end), anarchy WILL follow.