http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287953,00.html
WICHITA, Kan. — 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.
Police have refused to release the video, saying it is part of their investigation.
“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.”
The woman was stabbed during an altercation that was not part of a robbery, Bassham said. It took about two minutes for someone to call 911, he said.
Calloway, 27, died later at a hospital.
Two suspects have been arrested. A 19-year-old woman was charged with first-degree murder. Another suspect who turned himself in had not been charged as of Tuesday, the Sedgwick County prosecutor’s office said.
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.
Dear God in Heaven. *sigh* I almost have no words. Once again, man’s inhumanity towards their fellow man makes me wonder if we really deserve to survive as a species.
As for the DA’s dilemma, though, there is a solution: release the shoppers’ identities to the surviving family. Let them sue the shoppers into oblivion for not rendering aid. There might not be a recourse in criminal courts, but I’m sure a jury in a civil court would love to take up the slack…
