NY - Hugo Tale-Yax, 31, fatally stabbed, Queens, 18 April 2010

[LinasK]

No One Helped Homeless Man Who Saved a Woman From 5:30 a.m. Mugging
By LINSEY DAVIS, MICHAEL MILBERGER and KATE SANTICHEN
April 25, 2010
Why did passersby leave a Good Samaritan bleeding to death on a New York sidewalk last week, with one even pausing to snap a photo of the dying man who had been stabbed after thwarting a mugging? A psychologist believes there could be several reasons why people didn't offer to help Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax, 31 -- whose fate was captured on a grainy surveillance video -- perhaps including our culture's desensitization to violence from so much exposure in movies, video games and music.
"We love violence in this culture," said the psychologist, Michael Bradley. "We have this kind of 24/7 pounding of violence. We now know that that pounding of violence actually causes brain changes where people start to not distinguish between real violence and cyberviolence. We're actually rewiring our brains to not react to violence and pain the way we should."
Tale-Yax's death started playing out just after 5:30 a.m. on a Queens, N.Y., sidewalk last Sunday, April 18.
On the surveillance video, a woman is followed by a man, who then appears to accost her.
Tale-Yax walks toward them. What can't be seen is him being stabbed several times in the torso while trying to save the woman.
Within seconds, the camera captures the apparent attacker running away. Authorities say the woman fled from her assailant.
Tale-Yax, who was homeless, starts to chase the attacker but then collapses.
A minute later, a potential good Samaritan walks right by. And so does the next person and the one after that. A procession of more than 20 people seem to notice and fail to help.
One man pulls out his cell phone, but instead of dialing 911, he snaps a picture. Another man nudges Tale-Yax, rolls him over twice, seems to see blood, but then walks away.
For nearly an hour and a half, Tale-Yax lay there until someone finally called for help. Firefighters arrived at 7:23 a.m. more at link: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Weekend/dying-homeless-man-stopped-mugging-york-sidewalk/story?id=10471047

 

[zadari]

OMG how can ppl be so cruel this makes me just sick he lost his life helping someone else ... i cant believe ppl i just cant

 

[LadyL]

ok, and of all the ppl. who should've helped is perhaps the woman he saved
she fled which is fine but she couldn't pick up the phone?
she must've known he got stabbed

disgusting

would be nice if the video was clear and they could release it to humiliate all those passersby who did nothing to help

 

[Dark Knight]

It reminds me of the woman who was stabbed in NYC dozens of times and screamed for help but no one ever called for it, some even closed their windows to block out her screams.

May this hero RIP forever, in Jesus' Name, amen. He is no longer homeless.

 

[TXangel]

It reminds me of the woman who was stabbed in NYC dozens of times and screamed for help but no one ever called for it, some even closed their windows to block out her screams.

May this hero RIP forever, in Jesus' Name, amen. He is no longer homeless.

Kitty Genovese. I've read a little about that, but not much.

I can't believe this. Am I reading right? Does it really say an hour and a half?

That fool that stopped and took a picture but didn't call 911 ought to lose lifetime phone privileges.

 

[PorcineGranny]

Its a sad statement on the times we live in. May we always remember it and never be one of the ones who doesn't see another's need.

 

[Melanie]

ok, and of all the ppl. who should've helped is perhaps the woman he saved
she fled which is fine but she couldn't pick up the phone?
she must've known he got stabbed

disgusting

would be nice if the video was clear and they could release it to humiliate all those passersby who did nothing to help

Thank you! It's also quite difficult sometimes to determine if a homeless person is hurt or just sleeping. I visited Seattle recently, and saw so many downtown just lying on the sidewalk. I wonder how obvious it was that he was stabbed -- ya know?

MOO

Mel

 

[PeteyGirl]

(snipped)

That fool that stopped and took a picture but didn't call 911 ought to lose lifetime phone privileges.

Did this brainiac actually ADMIT he snapped a pic on his phone but neglected to call paramedics? He's got to be too stupid to operate a phone :waitasec:

 

[kbl8201]

like that woman in england who was mugged and beaten (and raped?) and passerby's ignored her cause they thought she was a drunk ;(

 

[A_New_Day]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/nyregion/28laborer.html

He persuaded his father to bless his departure from their poor village in the mountains of Guatemala by laying out a plan. He would go to New York, work hard and save enough money to buy his family a bigger piece of land.
Enlarge This Image

Kirsten Luce for The New York Times
Santos Tacam of Jersey City with a picture of his nephew, Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax, who was ignored as he lay dying in Queens.
Related

Questions Surround a Delay in Help for a Dying Man (April 26, 2010)
Dozens Ignored a Man Dying on a Sidewalk in Queens (April 25, 2010)
The young man, Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax, and his father, Juan Pablo Tale, kept in touch, and during the next eight years, Mr. Tale-Yax seemed, to his father, confident that he would fulfill his promise.

The last time they spoke, early this month, he told his father, “I will get through the difficulties and carry out the plan,” Mr. Tale recalled in a telephone interview from his hometown, a place called La Esperanza, Spanish for hope.

What the father did not know was how far the plan was from becoming reality.

Mr. Tale-Yax, 31, made his living as a day laborer, and when the economy crumbled, so did his job prospects. He wound up homeless and took to drinking, but he hid his difficulties from his family and refused any offers of help, his older brother, Rolando, said.

A grainy surveillance video trained on a street in Jamaica, Queens, on April 18 captured the final moments of Mr. Tale-Yax’s life: A couple argues, Mr. Tale-Yax comes to the woman’s aid, the man stabs him in the stomach and runs away.

Helping a stranger was the last act of a broken man.

“Sometimes alcohol made Hugo angry,” said Rolando Tale-Yax, who lives in Jersey City. “But he was a good person.”

The video has made headlines across the globe, not for its brutality, but for the indifference it seems to convey. It shows Mr. Tale-Yax lying face down for more than an hour on a sidewalk on 144th Street, near 88th Road, as dozens of people walk past him.

Detectives took a photograph of his face and showed it to people in the area until they found someone who knew his first name and led them to his brother in Jersey City. They were still looking on Tuesday for the man who stabbed Mr. Tale-Yax and the woman whom he tried to protect.

To the day laborers who gather at 89th Avenue and 139th Street in Jamaica, a spot Mr. Tale-Yax frequented, he was something of a mystery — a quiet man and a skilled carpenter who was there one day and then was not.

He walked by them some weeks ago, but held his head low and did not say a word, one of the men recalled.

Another said that he used to see him sleeping at a playground on 91st Avenue near the Van Wyck Expressway.

Rolando Tale-Yax, who is 38, said his brother told him that he was too embarrassed to concede defeat and go back to Guatemala. He found out that his brother was homeless when they bumped into each other at a niece’s birthday party in Queens a couple of months ago.

By then, the younger Mr. Tale-Yax had moved from a shelter in Brooklyn to a shelter in Manhattan and then to the streets of Jamaica, where he was killed.

He was one of six children: Rolando and another brother, Edgar, came to the United States before him, though Edgar settled in Houston.

They are K’iché, one of the many Mayan people who live in the Guatemalan highlands. At home, they helped their father raise corn in a tiny plot that barely yielded enough for the family’s survival.

To help their parents, they set their sights on the United States.

“Life is hard here, but you can accomplish things when you want it,” said Rolando Tale-Yax, who works as a cook’s helper when he cannot find work in construction.

The Guatemalan Consulate in New York will pay to repatriate Mr. Tale-Yax’s body, as it has for other destitute Guatemalans who have died in New York, said Rosa María Mérida de Mora, the consul general.

Mr. Tale-Yax’s relatives and friends plan to gather on Wednesday at a small funeral home, La Fe, in Bushwick, Brooklyn, for a service.

Afterward, his body will make its trip home, reversing a trek that cost him $6,000 and took him 14 days to complete; he walked through Mexico into Texas.

His body will travel by bus to La Esperanza, where, his father said, he will be buried in the cemetery next to the church where he was baptized


Related video:

The Bystander Effect: No One Cares

Help! lol
How do I post the Youtube vid?

 

[Gypsy Road]

So sad. I saw this on Anderson Cooper and it broke my heart. No one even tried to help him - unbelievable! Poor guy was so young - trying to help someone, yet no one helped him in the end. What is this world coming to?

 

[Filly]

The American dream, right?

How da*n sad is this? Sad on so many levels. Mr. Tale-Yax I am so sorry you were left like that to die.