It seemed to me that there were several patterns that ran through many of the letters. The first was terrible anger at the witnesses. These letter writers were totally unable to identify themselves with the witnesses and were full of a strange passion against them.
“I feel it is the duty of the New York Times to try to obtain the names of the witnesses involved and to publish the list,” one woman wrote. “These people should be held up for public ridicule, since they cannot be held responsible for their inaction.…
“Apparently these thirty-seven people feel no moral obligation to their fellow men. Therefore constant reminders in the newspapers are necessary to show them the contempt in which other morally responsible citizens hold them.”
Another woman, the wife of a professor, wrote: “The implications of their silence—and of the cowardice and indifference it revealed—are staggering. If the laws of New York State do not prescribe some form of punishment, then we believe your newspaper should pressure the state legislature for an amendment to those laws. And since these people did not even choose to recognize their moral responsibility we feel it would be appropriate, as a form of censure, for the Times to publish, preferably on page 1, the names and addresses of all thirty-seven people involved. Something must be done, and quickly, to discourage other people from such behavior in the future.”
It is an open matter for endless discussion among newspapermen as to whether people who write letters represent any meaningful consensus. Many of us feel that letter writers are usually unrepresentative, that few people feel strongly enough about things to write to newspapers, and that those who do represent nothing but their own emotions. I believe that in the case of the Austin Street murder this is a little oversophisticated.
I believe this because most of the emotions I found in the letters I found in my own friends and relatives. At first, there was a shadow of individual guilt. A friend said, “Dear God, what have we come to?” and the word “we” stuck in my mind. But generally, among my friends there was more “they” than “we,” particularly as the days went on. The story seemed to stick in the minds of people, to irritate them more, I think, than any in which I ever have had a part. “What kind of animals live on that street?” a friend asked me, and when I seemed startled at his vehemence he got even angrier. “Do you think this kind of behavior is normal?”
I didn’t, of course, but in my mind something was bothering me—a feeling that the story had turned into a hunt for a target, and the queasy belief that the target was in our own mirrors.
But to my amazement the favorite target by far was the police. Everybody had at them, at first. An editor on the Times, a thoughtful man, became tight-jawed with rage when the story was discussed, furious not at the people on Austin Street or what it showed about them or other people, but because he had convinced himself that the kernel of truth in the story was that New Yorkers had learned to be afraid of the police or contemptuous of them.
Judging by much of the mail, he had a good point.
“Have you ever reported anything to the police?” a letter writer demanded. “If you did, you would know that you are subjected to insults and abuse from annoyed undutiful police such as ‘why don’t you move out of the area’ or ‘why bother us, this is a bad area’ or you will have a call answered 45 min. after it was put in for aid; when you show interest in law violation being told to mind own business, or go away, take a walk.” Another: “Call the police! Are you kidding?… If you see how they operate you die laughing, funnier than the clown in the circus … I like everybody else sign no name I like to stay in business.” Another: “Nothing annoys a precinct desk captain more than a call after ten o’clock, if you want to complain your neighbors are having a rowdy party and keeping you awake.”
From the East Twenties in New York: “Shortly after moving in I heard screaming on the street several times, called the police and was politely told to mind my own business.”
It seemed to us that the Genovese story had become entwined with the story of public reaction to the police and the story of police operations. We took a look at the problem of patrolling and calling for help and found some interesting things. Radio cars and patrolmen are supposed to be patrolling every section of the five boroughs day and night. But as an official of the department said, “It’s nice if you are at the right spot at the right time. But it isn’t always possible.”
The Times reported: “Part of the problem with radio cars, for example, may be attributed to traffic congestion in the areas they are covering.
“The city’s 800 emergency service vehicles and radio motor patrol cars are under the jurisdiction of precinct captains in the five boroughs. There are eighty precincts.
“Cars cruise for eight hours on assignment from their precincts. Each car has a driver and a recorder, and they are expected to telephone their precincts every hour. They are under Police Headquarters orders only when the Communications Bureau assigns them to an emergency call in their area.”
But in other American cities this operation is simpler. Reports from Times correspondents in Chicago and Atlanta showed that in those cities only one man was assigned to a patrol car, and police reported that this increased their coverage.
In Chicago, the police say they are able to use 1,400 cars at peak periods as the result of one-man operation. They can send cars to emergencies quicker because each car is assigned to a specific area.
In New York, a spot check of precincts found that the average patrol car returned to a given spot about once every forty-five minutes. A patrolman is supposed to return to certain spots every half hour and to vary his rounds to confuse people given to keeping too close an eye on police whereabouts, but in many neighborhoods, according to residents, only a fool would be fooled.
We also looked into the three most frequent complaints to find out how they were being handled in other parts of the country. The complaints were:
The difficulty of getting a call through to the Police Department.
The necessity of having to answer personal questions before action was taken.
The length of time it took police to respond to calls.
On April 6, the Times reported:
This sort of criticism has been overcome in other cities because municipal leaders have striven for simplicity in their police operations. All of the cities surveyed use one telephone number for emergency calls to the police. Most of them act while an officer is still taking the call.
Philadelphia, Atlanta and San Francisco have developed direct lines to their radio rooms, which dispatch cars immediately to the scene of emergency reports.
New York City’s Police Commissioner, Michael J. Murphy, says that the system of separate exchanges and numbers in the five boroughs complicates the handling of emergency calls. He has assigned Capt. William J. Kanz, who is in charge of the Communications Bureau, to work out a better system with the New York Telephone Company.
A New Yorker who needs the help of the police can dial the operator or call the department number in his borough. But the borough numbers sometimes pose a problem. For example, the telephone for Staten Island is SAint George 7-1200. Yet the Police Department Official Roster issued last January 3 gives the exchange as ST George.
Persons who dial ST to reach the police on Staten Island find they are in touch with a business concern in Manhattan.
This couldn’t happen in Chicago. There, all calls from citizens are placed to a common number, POlice 5-1313. Other cities also have devised single numbers that ring directly in their police headquarters.
Another delay in New York results from the fact that policemen who handle incoming calls at the Communications Bureau usually ask for identification and other details before passing the information along to a radio room for relay to a radio car in the area.
In Cincinnati this delay has been eliminated. When the police receive an emergency call from a citizen, one man takes the information while another dispatches a car. In some cases the police
are on the scene before the call is completed.
The operation of each communications unit also is important to the speed with which the police can answer emergency calls. In New York there are seven such bureaus: Manhattan South and North, Brooklyn South and North and one each in the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island.
None of the other cities surveyed has such a massive structure for communications. All eleven cities have managed to centralize their units, so that directions to the police in the field can be given out simply and swiftly.
Following are reports of how other cities cope with emergency calls from the public:
BOSTON. All emergency calls go to a switchboard at Police Headquarters, with direct access to radio patrol cars. Calls are recorded on disks, which are kept for later reference. Depending on traffic conditions, the police car usually is on the scene in three or four minutes.
This city has an unusual service in relaying calls from car to car. Some patrol cars have radio equipment that makes it possible to get in touch with another car without having to go through headquarters.
Complaints that the police ask too many questions usually come from neighborhoods with lower intellectual and economic levels. But the police act so quickly that they recently were able to prevent the stabbing of a man by a deranged woman in the Roxbury District.
PHILADELPHIA. A resident who dials the police telephone number is put in immediate touch with the radio room at City Hall. There are no “middle men” in the operation here, and the call is flashed to the nearest police car.
All emergency calls are recorded on pre-punched, pre-numbered IBM cards. The cards are put on a conveyor belt that carries the information to one of three radio frequencies, labeled A, B, and C. From this source, a police dispatcher flashes the information on the air.
“We keep questions at a minimum,” a spokesman for the police said. “Some persons are so excited, they even forget their names. We honor any kind of a call, even if it is anonymous.”
ATLANTA. Persons reporting crimes here use a central number manned by three operators on fifteen incoming lines. The operators send the information to the radio room by an electronic process.
“We get disturbed if it takes more than five minutes to answer an emergency call,” Superintendent of Police Fred Beerman said.
The department maintains that it can offer fast response to emergency calls because it has no precinct system. It also has changed the manning of its patrol cars. Formerly two men rode in each car; now one handles it. This, a police official said, has enabled Atlanta to spread patrol cars better.
LOUISVILLE. Emergency telephone calls are handled by a complaint desk at Police Headquarters. A printed card is filled out and passed by conveyor belt to the radio dispatcher. His instructions to the patrol car and the response are recorded on a disk.
The police do not ask for identification of the caller and do not ignore anonymous calls.
MIAMI. An emergency telephone call to the police is handled by a complaint desk, which dispatches a radio car to the scene immediately. Officials declare that the police arrive on the scene two minutes after receipt of a call.
All calls and replies are tape-recorded.
In the case of anonymous calls or instances where people forget to give the location of the emergency, patrol cars are alerted to search their areas for trouble.
CINCINNATI. The police receive emergency calls directly. While one officer talks to the person calling, another dispatches a radio car to the scene. All calls are recorded on tape.
Failure of the public to call the police when noting a crime has been something of a problem. Officers point out that last week a holdup could have been prevented if a witness had called. He had watched a suspicious-looking man prowl in the area earlier in the day.
A woman complained recently: “Why don’t you stop talking and send the police?” She didn’t realize that a patrol car was already there, dispatched while she was calling.
CLEVELAND. A call to the police emergency telephone number is answered by a dispatcher in the radio room. The information is relayed directly by radio to cars cruising the city.
This system led last week to the capture of three men as they were holding up a supermarket.
A neighbor phoned the police when she saw suspicious movements in the store.
However, there have been some complaints about the police being slow to arrive.
The police are considering breaking their dispatching center into three or four local units to ease the heavy traffic at the current single telephone number.
CHICAGO. All emergency calls go to a common number and are channeled to a communications center at Police Headquarters.
As an officer receives the call on a telephone headset, he looks at a zone board before him and dispatches a car. Then he fills out an IBM index card with all the information about the call.
There are mostly one-man cars on beats, and more cars are running as a result.
The use of the common telephone number has eliminated all calls to district stations, except through headquarters. It has helped to speed the police response to emergency calls.
SALT LAKE CITY. Phone calls to the police go to a switchboard operator, who determines whether the situation requires the duty desk or the radio dispatcher. All calls are recorded on IBM cards. Delays take place when a call is not assessed correctly.
Uncertainty about jurisdiction between city police and the county sheriff’s office has also delayed responses in some cases.
SAN FRANCISCO. A “hot-line” setup at Police Headquarters leads to fast responses to emergency calls. When a resident calls a central number he is asked if it is an emergency. If it is, his call is flashed to an eight-man radio operation and the line flashes red. These calls are relayed immediately to field units, and all conversations are taped.
The police maintain their own phone service through a division of electricity.
Lieut. Howard Ross, in charge of communications, says he can have a car at the point of the complaint within two or three minutes.
SEATTLE. A recent study here showed that the police responded in five minutes when the public called the emergency number. All calls go to a complaint department, where information is taken on a prepared form, which is sent by conveyor belt to the radio room. There a dispatcher sends a car to the scene. All conversations are taped.
Phone service has been uniformly good since the police got their own exchange a year ago. The single number covers the three major precincts and all the minor divisions.
At no time during the investigation of the murder of Catherine Genovese was any blame put on the police. This was a case where they seemed to function smoothly and blamelessly. But the attention focused on the case by the story in the Times brought out long-smoldering complaints against the mechanics of calling the police, and these stories did lead to some action.
There was a decision by the police not to insist on getting the names of people calling in with complaints, and Commissioner Murphy was able to push ahead a bit with a plan for getting a central number that would handle citizens’ complaint calls from all over the city.
This is what happens now in New York. A person in trouble, or somebody who wants to complain to the police, can dial either O for Operator or the police number listed in the front of his borough telephone directory—a different number for each of the five boroughs.
In either case, the call is relayed to the borough Communications Bureau, where an officer takes the information down, asks the caller for his identity, and then passes on the information to the local precinct. There can be delays at any one of the points—the operator, the communications unit or the precinct.
The police said a few days after the story about the silent witnesses appeared that they would try to set up a central number, perhaps a number that would spell “For Help” or “Police” or the like. The telephone company said that having an easily remembered name-number would be of no help, because no matter how simple it
was, too many people would spell it wrong. In any case, it will be a matter of years before New York has a central emergency number.
All this comment about—and usually against—the police that grew out of the Genovese story we dutifully reported, as we reported the rather harried police comment.
There is, to me, a boundless irony in the “anti-police” feeling that was stirred up, at least in the beginning, by the Genovese story. Rather, several ironies. To start with, it accomplished what the police most wanted—to rouse New Yorkers to a realization of how much police work was hampered by citizens’ turning their backs, refusing to bear witness.
Most of all there was the irony inherent in the fact that the police found themselves getting dirty looks as the result of a case in which civilians had been entirely to blame, and in which the police machinery had responded perfectly. If any one of the witnesses had put in a call while Miss Genovese was being attacked, the chances are that she would have been saved, for when the call did come the police arrived within a matter of a few minutes.
I found myself in the rather strange position of defending the police to my friends and associates—defending them as the result of a case in which nobody really charged that they were at fault. Every time I pointed out that the cops were not at fault, somebody would tell me a story he had heard about a cop on a beat taking a bribe. It was ludicrously like that old joke about a Stalinist, asked about steel production in the Soviet Union, shouting at his American tormentor: “Yes, but how about the lynchings in your South?”
Anyway, a new bit of journalese was coined in the office:
“Here’s an insert for our apathy story today.”
“This looks like it could develop into an apathy angle.”
“Slug it ‘apathy’.”
It happens often in the newspaper business that one unusual story seems to give birth to others of the same kind. For weeks after the first story our own paper and other newspapers printed stories about a variety of forms of public apathy—even the London bureau of the Times filed one about a British woman chasing a thief while onlookers did nothing but look on.
Thirty-Eight Witnesses Page 5