Bethany MaGee, Iryna Zarutska, Debrina Kawam: How US' unsafe public transit system held 3 innocent women ‘captive’
The recent attack on Bethany MaGee, set on fire on a Chicago train, drew comparisons to the horrific murders of Iryna Zarutska and Debrina Kawam.
A brutal attack on a woman on board a CTA Blue Line train last week has renewed conversations about how America’s public transit riders have been dealing with increasing safety issues. Bethany MaGee, 26, is recovering from severe burns in a hospital after being set ablaze by Lawrence Reed, of Chicago, on a CTA Blue Line train. Reed has a long criminal record, with various felony cases.
The attack was completely unprovoked. Reed was sitting at the back of a car on a Blue Line L train when he approached MaGee, who sat with her back to him, according to a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrest affidavit, CNN reported. He doused MaGee with what was believed to be gasoline, following which she ran to the back of the train car. Reed then ignited the bottle, approached the victim, and set her on fire.
This attack drew comparisons to the murders of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, and Debrina Kawam of New Jersey – two other innocent women who lost their lives in heinous unprovoked, unpredictable attacks. Zarutska was ambushed and stabbed to death on a Charlotte light rail train by Decarlos Brown Jr, a career criminal, in August. The 23-year-old woman had fled her war-torn home to seek safety in the US.
Kawam, 57, on the other hand, was set on fire on a Brooklyn F train while she was asleep, by Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, an illegal Guatemalan immigrant. The suspect was later seen in a bone-chilling video sitting calmly on a bench and watching the victim burn.
The struggle of America’s public transit riders
Horrific videos of Kawam and Zarutska’s murders surfaced on social media, shocking Americans. Countless times a day, riders like Zarutska, Kawam and MaGee go about their routines, traveling by public transport, even as problems like homelessness, untreated mental illness and unprovoked attacks continue to threaten them amid a major lack of security in public transportation. The challenge seems neverending when it comes to keeping America’s public transportation riders safe in vast and crowded systems that fuel urban life.
“Wherever you have a gathering of people, it’s a target, particularly if the people can’t escape,” said CNN transportation analyst Mary Schiavo, a former US Department of Transportation inspector general. “And therein lies the problem. Once you’re on the train, the bus, the plane, the ship – you’re captive.”
These security challenges always come with being “open and accessible.” “Transit systems have to be open and accessible,” said Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, interim dean at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs and a transit safety expert, per CNN. “It’s very difficult to install measures that you put, for example, in airports because the public is not going to accept such delays.”
Loukaitou-Sideris said that using scanners at major hubs that can quickly detect knives and handguns, without riders having to wait in line, could be helpful. Such technology is already used in China, but is expensive, she noted.
Meanwhile, Todd Litman, founder and executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute in Canada, said that according to his research, the risk of death or injury on public transit is about one tenth that of car travel. “Anywhere there are concentrations of homelessness and mental illness, you’re probably going to find more of these random attacks like what happened in Charlotte,” Litman said.
Homelessness and mental illness are widespread. Brown, Zarutska’s killer, was a schizophrenic homeless man with a prison record who the system set free on cashless bail.
The bystander effect
In at least two of the three cases, bystanders did nothing as the victims suffered in pain. Videos of the attack on Kawam showed unfazed bystanders doing nothing to help as the woman burned to death. No one rushed to help, with videos showing at least three people looking on. One of them was even seen filming the fire. An NYPD cop was also seen walking by, but it is unclear if he was part of the response group or whether other measures were already being undertaken to douse the fire.
The horrific footage of Zarutska being stabbed to death showed fellow passengers ignoring her as she lay dying – even after the killer had left the train. After being stabbed in the neck, Zarutska looked around, confused and shocked. She then covered her face, cried, and slowly bled out – and no one seemed to rush to her aid. She slipped off her seat and died alone.
Footage showed people milling around the grim scene. It was only after a full minute and a few seconds that a man finally came to help Zarutska, appearing to phone for help and pulling her compressed body into the aisle. Two other people administered CRP a few minutes later. But it was too late.
In January, days after Kawam’s murder, HindustanTimes.com spoke to Kent Bausman, Ph.D., a professor of sociology in the Online Sociology Program at Maryville University, about the bystander effect and why people refuse to intervene when violent crimes are committed before their eyes. Talking about why people often refuse to intervene when crimes are committed in front of them, Bausman said the phenomenon often stems from what is known as the bystander effect, from a sociological perspective.
The bystander effect occurs when other people’s presence discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation. “In this scenario, each person assumes that someone else will act, ultimately nullifying one’s sense of obligation to intervene on behalf of a perceived crime victim,” Bausman said. “But sociology plays a role as well, when there is a societal emphasis on the norms of privacy, it results in attitudes about not "getting involved" in situations perceived as dangerous or ambiguous. Furthermore, in densely populated environments a culture of anonymity lessens one’s sense of felt obligation, adding to inhibition to intervene.”
Bausman noted that “the bystander effect was likely amplified by the urban context of the subway” in Kawam’s case. “Public transportation systems, particularly in large cities such as New York City, often represent spaces of anonymity and detachment. The density of New York City, coupled with the banality of the subway system creates an atmosphere of "civil inattention," where individuals tacitly agree not to involve themselves in others' affairs, you add to this the shock of the situation without the visible presence of the perpetrator serving as an immediate threat in the situation and this could paradoxically have contributed to the passivity witnessed. In the shock of the moment, in the early hours of the moment the urgency of the event might not have been fully registered by those witnessing it. Its possible in that situation many might have seen this as a horrific suicide attempt by self-immolation,” he explained.
These recent murders also remind us of the brutal slaying of Kitty Genovese, an incident that is said to have inspired the study of the bystander effect. Genovese, 28, was returning home from work on March 13, 1964, when she was stalked, raped, and stabbed to death by Winston Moseley. The young bartender was killed outside the apartment building where she lived in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, New York. Several people witnessed the attack, but no one called the police or intervened until the brutal assault was over.
The nightmarish incident came to symbolise urban apathy in the US. Moseley died in prison in 2016, aged 81.
