After bystanders recorded a woman being beaten by a man named Marc Gomez in the New York City subway near the Bronx, the video of the event went viral with many internet users quoting the tweeted video, reacting in shock, and commenting in defense of the attacked lady.
The perpetrator’s motivations for hurting this lady in the first place are still unclear; at seventy eight years old, the poor woman in the videos did not deserve to be attacked, though Gomez has defended his actions by saying many times that she threatened to stab him. There is no way of knowing whether this is true, of course, as the bystanders had not videoed anything leading up to the event. Even more disturbingly, it is reported that as Gomez passed the bystanders videoing the aggressive act, Gomez called out the name of a website used to post videos of fights, leading some people online to believe that this may have been a somewhat planned attack. This brings up a topic that has been recurring in the news a lot recently: real-life attacks being inspired by online content, websites, and media. This seems to be especially true with acts of physical aggression, and we have seen it when white supremacists have been inspired by Trump, with just a few examples being the Jewish Synagogue shooting and the bombs sent to various representatives for the Democratic party and democratic outlets last year.
If the lady did in fact threaten Gomez, it would make sense as to why Gomez had to defend himself in a public way – however, if this is not the case, it is difficult to understand not only why Gomez would have done this in the first place, but why he would have done this where people may easily record him. In the age of social media, someone was bound to take a video of him, and it’s likely to me that video such as this would go viral – especially seeing as a video of a man kicking a senior citizen is very uncomfortable, disturbing, and jarring.
The bystanders who recorded the incident have also been criticized for not helping the woman. While it may just be typical New Yorker etiquette to mind your own business, it’s true that it would have been more decent to have attempted to help the lady and break up the fight. However, I don’t blame the bystanders for being protective of their own safety. The fight certainly appeared extremely dangerous on video, and perhaps the best thing to do in that situation is gather evidence on your phone so that justice can be brought. If the other passengers’ instinct was to stay out of the situation for their own safety and/or to not escalate the situation more, listening to their gut may have been the correct move – though perhaps intervening would have ended the fight earlier and less harm would have been done.
Most recently, Gomez was charged with multiple crimes, including harassment and second and third degree assault, and he is currently in police custody as his victim recovers in the hospital.
