A deranged man on a New York City subway angrily storms around the car and grabs a woman by the hair who is trying to move away from him. He pulls her back to her seat. Trapped and with fear in her eyes, she quietly pleads for someone to help her. She offers no other defense. No one moves. No one even says anything. The only person even passively participating is the guy taking the video on his phone.

The attacker angrily shouts to the woman to "get up!" and he pulls her towards the front of the car. There are three men standing right there. They do nothing. Three grown men. One looking at his phone and the other two ignoring the attack.

Suddenly the attacker releases her and pushes her forward while he start striding towards the other end of the car while yelling for someone to "shut the f--- up!". It's at this point we see a large man in a light blue polo shirt in the frame. He seems to be asking the woman if she is alright. It might be the case that the presence of this man prompted the attacker to let the woman go.

However, the mentally disturbed man continues to rant and, at one point, starts kicking at the car windows. He sits down, then gets up to confront the man taking the video. This man wisely steps away from the attacker and positions a pole between them. The attacker and a number of other passengers depart. No apparent attempt is made by anyone to do anything regarding the attack.

Is this what our culture has come to? We have to face the current situation that many criminals are 1. mentally ill; 2. unafraid of getting caught; 3. unafraid of any bystanders intervening.

Is this just the "bystander effect" that New York seems to be famous for? Or are we seeing continued fracturing in social and cultural norms?

A number of these types of attacks have us changing our women's self-defense strategies in dealing with attacks. Take a look at our post "Broken Social Contract Changes our Self-Defense Strategy" at the Women's Self-Defense Community [ Ссылка ]

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