THIS ONE WAS MORE THAN A PAUSE FOR ME. I WONDER HOW MANY OF THOSE WHO WATCHED BOTHERED TO CALL FOR HELP? I WOULD BELIEVE THAT MOST OF US ON GATHER WHO ARE A BIT OLDER WOULD HAVE IMMEDIATELY CALLED FOR HELP FOR THIS YOUNG MAN.
BUT, IT DOES MAKE YOU WONDER A BIT ABOUT WHO COULD WATCH SOMETHING LIKE THIS AND DO NOTHING.
KITTY GENOVESE DIED MARCH 13 1964 LINK AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE
MIAMI - The father of a college student whose suicide was
broadcast live over a webcam said Saturday he was appalled by the virtual audience that egged on his son and called for tougher regulation of Internet sites.
Abraham Biggs Sr. said those who watched and the Web site operators share some blame in his 19-year-old son's death.
"I think they are all equally wrong," he said. "It's a person's life that we're talking about. And as a human being, you don't watch someone in trouble and sit back and just watch."
Police found Abraham Biggs Jr. dead in his father's bed Wednesday, 12 hours after he first declared on the Web site for bodybuilders that he planned to take his own life. He took a fatal drug overdose in front of an Internet audience. Although some viewers contacted the Web site to notify police, authorities did not reach his house in time.
Biggs, who has said he was at work during the episode, said he had not known about his son's online presence.
"I think after this incident and probably other incidents that have occurred in the past, they all point to some kind of regulation is necessary," Biggs said. "I think it is wrong to have this happen for hours without any action being taken from the people in charge. Where were they all the time?"
The younger Biggs posted a link from the Web site to Justin.tv, which allows users to broadcast live with their webcams.
A computer user who claimed to have watched said that after swallowing some pills, Biggs went to sleep and appeared to be breathing for a few hours while others cracked jokes. Some users told investigators they did not take him seriously because he had threatened suicide on the site before.
Biggs Sr. said he believes the webcast was a cry for help.
"But rather than get help, he was ignored," Biggs said. "I would not want to see anything like that on the Internet and not try and get help for that young man. I think that's what the average person would do. Any normal person would do. I'm really appalled."
Pembroke Pines Police Department Sgt. Bryan Davis said no new information on the case was available Saturday.
Biggs Sr. said funeral arrangements have not yet been set for his son, who he said loved helping others.
"He was a good kid. Good kid," Biggs Sr. said. "It's a shame I wasn't there to help him. It's a big loss to me. I wish I was there to help him - since nobody else would."
Miami lawyer William Hill said there is probably nothing that could be done legally to those who watched and did not act. As for whether the Web site could be held liable, Hill said there doesn't seem to be much of a case for negligence.
"There could conceivably be some liability if they knew this was happening and they had some ability to intervene and didn't take action," said Hill, who does business litigation and has represented a number of Internet-based clients. But "I think it would be a stretch."
An autopsy concluded Biggs died from a combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, which his family said was prescribed for his bipolar disorder.
"Abe, i still wish this was all a joke," a friend wrote on the teenager's MySpace page.
In a statement, Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel said: "We regret that this has occurred and want to respect the privacy of the broadcaster and his family during this time."
It is unclear how many people watched it happen. The Web site would not say how many people were watching the broadcast. The site as a whole had 672,000 unique visitors in October, according to Nielsen.
Biggs was not the first person to commit suicide with a webcam rolling. But the drawn-out drama - and the reaction of those watching - was seen as an extreme example of young people's penchant for sharing intimate details about themselves over the Internet.
WELL IF YOU GOT THIS FAR YOU KNOW I DONT LET US OFF EASILY. THIS IS NOTHING NEW. LETS GO BACK TO MARCH 12 1964 AND A WOMAN NAMED KITTY GENOVESE. NOTHING HAS REALLY CHANGED JUST THE TECHNOLOGY..SO HERE IS MY FYI FOR ALL OF YOU
http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-history-hs818a,0,7944135.story
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Comments: 46
Certainly the viewers of the suicide of Abraham Biggs Jr. should have attempted to intervene...suicide is an act of desperation but it is self inflicted harm. No one can defend the actions of those who didn't at least try to send help for Mr Biggs.
The non- actions of the people who passively allowed the murder of an innocent young lady at the hands of a raving maniac are contemptible...damnable. As far as I am concerned, they were enablers for the murderer....accomplices. Technically they broke no laws, but realistically they aided the murderer by their silence....a clearly integral part of the circumstances that allowed the murder of Kitty Genovese.
No one says that any of us have all or even some of the answers but there is a responsibility to try.
I dont have another 44 yrs but my wish today is that someone else doesnt have to deal with issue again 44 more yrs down the road of time.
Fab D.....My greatest hope for the future is with the younger generation. Look how they have embarrassed climate change; a problem for the most part exacerbated by my generation (born in 44). They have not stopped to ask who started it or whose fault it is rather they have taken action. I do have the feeling that this generation coming age the first 20 yrs of this century will be the one will be the defining generation who lays the foundation of success for the next dozen generations.
I have a lot of hope for the younger generation coming of age now than at any other time in my lifetime.
Kitty Genovese was being stabbed in close proximity to the witnesses, she was screaming for help and she was attacked on three separate occasions....all the while the almost 40 people who could either see her, hear her or both, just shut their doors, cut off the lights and went to bed.
I see a difference in the accountability of the witnesses in the two events. This is my point and my opinion and was meant only as an added perspective to your post...
Slim I am so sorry made the assumption and you know what they say about assumptions lol that everyone reads the all comments like I usually do. Sorry about that Farmer Slim.
Anyone want to try an interesting poll??? Let me know and I wont run it. But my idea for a poll this week is would you purchase a pay for view to view someones execution? How about would you purchase a pay for view if the net proceeds when to the victims families. The catch 22 is you have to watch it. I would say NO but thats me.
A really good boxing match will generate a couple of hundred million in pay for view revenue and the only interested parties are boxing fans.
The larger question is this...would you buy a raffle ticket to be the one who pulls the lever for an execution? I would pay to look at Scott Peterson in the eyes and pull the switch that sends thousands of volts of electricity through his body. But then...I am the vindictive type.
These is no such thing as justice. There is justification for one's actions, but justice? ....How can that which is not or cannot be described in terms of measurable effects.. be accounted for...paid back...a debt paid to society by time in prison? Justice is an effort to balance the scales...it cannot be done. There can be no payment equal to the life of an individual or the damage to an innocent victim.
What we can extract is retribution...plain and simple. It is punishment..not justice. Justice is NEVER done..it is an allusive quest to even things out...it is not possible.
I don't happen to be an advocate of the death penalty (anymore). It costs too much and I am not so sure that we are not offering an easy way out for the condemned. I hope that spending the rest of one's days in a 6x10 foot cell...23 hours a day is worse than death...it would be for me.
As for compassion...I am one of the most compassionate people you are likely to meet. My compassion is reserved, however for those who deserve compassion and that does not include the violent, two legged predator that rapes, robs, mutilates, murders, or participates in any willful act of harm to an innocent.
2. even if you call, by the time police take your call seriously, to contact their IT, who will have to take the link first, contact justin tv, and have them give up the IP address, which they will use to find a location, it would have been too late anyways.
3. if people call every time somone appears to be doing something like this over the net, no call would be taken seriously anyways. Hoax, hoax, and hoax. There have been simulations of murder and rape over the net. Regulate that. Good luck.
It does happen.
When I was in the USMC, my father had a stroke. He banged on the wall of our apartment for several hours, seeking help. Our neighbors thought he was drunk, and no-one called the police until he didn't show up for work the next day. He died a month or so later, and I held some resentment for my neighbors after that.
What this kid did was no-one else's fault but his. Unlike Kitty Genovese, or my father, Abraham Biggs Jr. was solely responsible for his death. The similarities of the witnesses, whether hearing it, or watching it online, doesn't impart guilt to any of them, except in the minds of people who were not there.
I feel the anger of the senior Mr. Biggs; I felt it myself, in 1984. The joking is understandable, if the junior Mr. Biggs had a history of fake suicide attempts before. It also accounts for why no-one sounded an alert, sooner.
Domestic violence was "accepted" in the '60's, and people used to "look the other way." My dad "made noise at night," occasionally, so our neighbors didn't take his banging more seriously. What Mr. Biggs Jr. did was something he knew would not "raise the alarm," unlike the actions of Ms. Genovese, or my dad. I don't see much of a comparison, except that it was a tragic event.
Kitty Genovese screamed for her life. My dad banged on the wall to beg for help. Neither of them directly caused their own demise, and while we all can wish that someone would have acted to help sooner, we can't hold call those people culpable in any of their deaths, as hard as that may sound.
Kitty Genovese died when I was ten years old. It was probably the saddest story of my childhood other than President Kennedy getting shot. We live in a violent society. It is amazing when it happens because we are always surprised. I think that what makes the Genovese Syndrome so appalling is that so many people heard the cries for help and they did nothing. In the case of this young man, he wasn't crying for help. He was advertising his suicide as an event. Sadly, the people who tuned in to the event didn't catch on to what was happening.
On more "regulation", I don't know--what type? How is something like that regulated? Oh...I know...like age: a little check box that states you won't do anything to harm yourself? Like the check box that says I am over 13 years old?
I'd like to see people take more valued interest in others. Why are people sitting infront of their computers for hours watching somebody die? Why do people just walk or turn away when they see people attacking others?
I understand that people don't want to get involved but this was horrendous.
Now, I'm going off subject.........believe it or not!! ;)
So, Moseley apologized for the inconvenience he caused the family. Then, Moseley also told the board the murder was as difficult for him as his victim. "For a victim outside, it's a one-time or one-hour or one-minute affair,'' he said. "But, for the person who's caught, it's forever.''
You're not going to like this Carol!!!
In all actuallity he murdered her 3 times. He went back not once but two other times to stab her again. He returned to get his fix 3 freakin' times.
He has no remorse other than being caught. THIS is why I support the death penalty. It's been almost 50 years and if he was let out today, tonight he would kill someone. He has not been reformed at all. He's a time bomb waiting to go off again.
That goes for 45 years ago as well as now.