
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 11, 1995                   TAG: 9504120014
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CRIME WATCH

AMERICANS are nothing less than shocked by the prevalence of violence in our country. We must have more police, more prisons, no parole, three strikes you're out, lock 'em up and throw away the key, all the rest. Anything the government can come up with to fight this scourge.

Just don't expect us to get involved.

Might this fairly summarize the presumed views of six customers, three men and three women, who stood by and watched last week as a wiry teen-ager, apparently without any provocation, brutally beat the lone woman clerk in a Fredericksburg convenience store?

Just watched - as the punk hit the woman in the face, then pounded her while she cowered bruised and bloody in a corner. Didn't try to intervene to stop the assault. Didn't bother to try to help her, even after the kid left the store, raising his arms in victory like a prize-winning boxer. Didn't even bother to pick up a phone and call 911 - even after they fled the scene as fast as they could.

Another thug's mindless violence. We're shocked. But we ought to be equally as stunned by the lack of moral backbone and decent human response of those who'd do nothing but watch.

Well, they probably couldn't believe their eyes. Well, sure, they were paralyzed with fear. The kid might have had a gun, might have turned and killed them all.

Since the crime occurred, and has received national media attention, residents of the Fredericksburg neighborhood where it happened are still jittery, still pondering the matter. Said one resident: ``When it comes right down to it, people don't think about other people the way they used to. We have just become blase.''

A long time ago, New Yorkers watched as a woman below their windows was killed - and did not call police. That news came as a shock; today it might be regarded as routine.

We don't pretend to know the answer, but it's not just more prisons and punishments. And it's certainly not indifference to what's happening to those around us.

At some point, we have to regain a sense of community with our neighbors, to stand up for each other against the drug dealers and hoodlums and wife-beaters who would violate our homes and streets and lives. Otherwise, there'll soon be no safe place to which to flee. They'll win - and we all might as well be beaten, bloodied and cringing in the corner.

by CNB