A 63-year-old woman was sexually assaulted in broad daylight on a Philadelphia street Monday — and only saved because a bystander beat the attacker off with a bike helmet. When cities refuse to keep citizens safe, ordinary Americans are left to do the job themselves.
The assault happened around 4:15 p.m. in the city's Point Breeze neighborhood. Mary Martin, the woman who intervened, told KABC-TV she saw the victim's face and how upset she was and got "really mad that someone would do that to someone."
"I was holding my bike helmet, so I started hitting him with it," Martin said. She then realized she was putting herself in danger, so she snapped photos of the fleeing suspect and went back to check on the victim.
A witness described seeing "a woman running after the suspect with her bike helmet and saying, 'How dare you? How dare you?'" according to KABC-TV.
The suspect was walking away casually while the victim was visibly shaken. "He was casually walking away as she was really upset," Martin said.
Martin accompanied the victim to the Special Victims Unit to file a report and provided detectives with the photos she took. As of publication, police are still searching for the suspect.
Martin credited bystander intervention training for spurring her into action. "If you see something, say something. There's a lot of power in calling out gross behavior," she said. "He didn't stop because she was yelling; it wasn't until I, outside the situation, interrupted him and said, 'What you're doing isn't OK.'"
Philadelphia has grappled with rising crime and a progressive district attorney's office that has faced sustained criticism for failing to prosecute offenders aggressively. When a senior citizen cannot walk her neighborhood at 4 in the afternoon without being sexually assaulted — and when the only thing standing between her and her attacker is a passing cyclist with a helmet — the social contract is broken.
The other two outlets in this synthesis pool, AL.com and CNN, covered a mass shooting in South Africa that left 11 dead at a house party — a story with no bearing on the Philadelphia assault. Neither outlet touched the Philly story.
Police released photos of the suspect but have made no arrests. The man remains at large in a city where citizens increasingly understand that protection is a personal responsibility.
The open question: how many Americans will have to arm themselves — with helmets, with handguns, with whatever is at hand — before city governments remember that public safety is their one indispensable job?
