Disturbing situation

Situation.

For a couple of weeks now, almost all media outlets—both audiovisual and print—have been covering and following a criminal court case that has gripped society as a whole. It involves the horrific crime of a young underage girl who was apparently approached by someone who attempted to assault her. As she defended herself from the attack, he beat her savagely. The girl fainted, and he then attempted to strangle her with his hands, as well as with some ropes or cord. Believing her to be dead, he contorted her body, tied her feet, placed a supermarket bag over her head, and then put her inside two heavy-duty trash bags before throwing her into a trash container. Later, a garbage truck picked her up, and the truck's compaction mechanism appears to have caused her death. Fortunately, the truck arrived at a waste-sorting plant, where the young girl's body passed through another machine that tears open the bags, and that is where she was discovered. Briefly and with some inaccuracies, these were the facts of the case.

The case gained notoriety due to a multitude of factors, ranging from interesting figures to pathetic characters who intervened—from the strictly judicial realm to the social sphere. Everyone expresses an opinion, just as I am doing right now.

It reached a point where, for several reasons—initially hints, and later increasingly strong evidence—pointers directed attention toward one individual: the janitor of the building where the victim lived (the sole victim in all of this being the deceased girl).

In the midst of all the media circus—which is beside the point to describe because it could become far too lengthy, nor is it the topic that concerns me—and in the midst of the ongoing legal proceedings aimed at finding the truth and bringing the accused person (or persons) of this crime to justice to be tried, the judge took an action during the process: ordering all the residents of the building to testify about this or that matter, which I am unaware of (and which is also beside the point).

This is where my inquiry or concern begins, from a perspective entirely outside the case in question. What worries me or draws a certain level of my attention as food for thought—and perhaps I am deeply mistaken or wrong, but I allow myself to raise these concerns, whether from a sociological, psychological, or criminological perspective, or whichever perspective should address this small event within a larger framework—is as follows.

To wit, the facts unfold like this: the judge summons all the residents of an entire building to testify. The building has 7 floors with 2 apartments per floor. Let us calculate an average of 2 residents per apartment. We are talking about 14 apartments. Subtracting the victim's apartment leaves 13; at two people per unit, that makes a total of 26 people. (A clarification that this is an assumption: there were 3 vacant apartments, and some were possibly occupied by more than 2 people and others by only 1 person). Let us stick with 26 as a general average.

The judge summons them urgently. He does so at night, from 9:00 PM onward, and perhaps even later. He sends one or several police cruisers with police personnel to fetch them and sends a police van to transport them to the Courthouse; what is certain is that there were several officers. The 26 residents willingly comply with the police request and present themselves at the Courthouse before the judge. Of course, everything turned out fine: the police picked up the residents not by force, but voluntarily, and brought them to the Courthouse before the judge, where they testified and returned to their homes. I do not know if the police brought them back as they finished testifying or if they returned on their own.

It was an unprecedented measure; at least, I had no recollection of anything like it in the last 30 years in the country, nor did I hear anyone in the media mention a similar precedent.
To be clear, we live under the Rule of Law, and every citizen enjoys all constitutional guarantees in their favor. In this case, these were not violated.

It is from this submissive and placid attitude of the citizens involved in the event that my concerns arise, because there have indeed been numerous cases in history—detailed in varied literature—where events like this did not end well.

The concern is how not a single resident refused to go; how not a single resident questioned being transported to the Courthouse; how not a single resident chose to show up immediately but travel to the Courthouse on their own, whether by taxi or bus; how not a single resident consulted their trusted lawyer (for those who have one); how not a single resident asked to be accompanied by their own lawyer; how not a single resident requested to go in an individual police cruiser rather than in the van used to take them all together (which, by the way, looked like a van used for police personnel transport); how no one considered hiring a private minibus to take them; how it occurred to no one to request transport from the judge or a court official via traditional rather than police transport. All the residents walked out one by one in a line without making a single comment to the press, despite 8 to 10 media outlets filming at the door—which, even if it might not seem like it, represent an additional (I would say extralegal) guarantee for citizens. Yet, it surprised me that not a single person said absolutely anything. No one decided not to show up, or to arrive later than scheduled; no one requested to be taken one by one; no one asked to be taken in separate cruisers or cars instead of all together in a van; no one asked for one of the journalists, TV reporters, or at least a camera operator to ride along during the transport in the van, even on mute... and several other alternative possibilities that come to my mind.

This passivity and complete submission to authority is what causes me a certain level of concern, setting aside that under the Rule of Law, it is (and was) the shortest, fastest, most trouble-free, and effective path, and that at the end of the day, the judge obtained what he needed, and the residents complied with the request of the justice system.

(originally published on 6/30/2013)