Vengeance for Kitty Genovese

In 1964 in the Kew Gardens area of NY City--Ms. Genovese was repeatedly stapped, the attacker fled, came back and stabbed her some more, and then raped her and stole $38.00 from her purse. 38 people in the "neighborhood" heard her screams during the attacks, and while she crawled to the locked door of her apartment building when the second and/or third attacks occurred. The attacks began about 3:15 am, an ambulance got there about 4:15 am. She died en route to the hospital. NOT ONE of the "neighbors" called the cops. It takes a while to die from bleeding to death. If someone had called at the time of the first attack, she might very well have lved, as well as not having been raped. The attacker was caught. This was his THIRD MURDER, and only another one of numerous previous rapes. He was convicted and sentenced to death, but 5 old men on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for a "mere rape" was "cruel and unusual punishment". (GOOGLE that case--I think it's Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977). (This was another rapist in Georgia, some years later.)) Two "justices" held that the death penalty was always cruel and unusual ( they did that in EVERY death penalty case for many years). So it was 7-2. Justices Burger and Rehnquist would have let the guy in Georgia fry.

The guy who murdered Ms. Genovese had his sentenced reduced to life. But he escaped and kidnapped and raped another woman while on the loose. He was re-caught and died in prison after 52 years of three hot meals and a shower every day. Something FAR MORE than what he gave Ms. Genovese! I'm not going to dignify this bastard by mentioning his name, but you can GOOGLE it.

In 1996, again in the early morning hours, Sandra Zahler was attacked and stabbed to death ( another murder) in her apartment in NY City, a stone's throw away from where Kitty Genovese was attacked and stabbed and raped. Again, NO ONE IN THE APARTMENT BUILDING CALLED THE COPS. Her body was not even discoverd until 34 hours later, when her boy friend ( who had a key and who was NOT a suspect) found her body in the apartment.

Read the, "The Quality of Mercy is Not Strained" soliloquy by Portia in "Shakespeare's, "The Merchant of Venice"and tremble at humanity. Those folks in New York were no different from the good burghers and hausfraus in Germany who ignored the smoke belching from the smoke-stacks in World War 2, or the millions who were murdered by Pol Pot in Southeast Asia, or the Armenians in Turkey at he start of the 20th century, and on and on and on.

When one looks at the depths to which mankind has descended over the ages, one finds it really difficult to find any mercy in our species.

Boy, isn't this depressing!

Trying to look on the bright side, this poem is a superb (5 stars) paean for us to behave like Portia, and not the worst of our kind.

May they they have to roam the Dark streets and Alleys of Hell always running and never finding Solace as they seek a place to hide from the "SONDERKAMANDOS."

JAUNTYOLDONE

I liked the poem it was powerful. I am ignorant of who these people are though.

<searching google>

Dman it all to hell! Good popem.

Sincely, Paynbrant.

P.S. 5