Inquirer Editorial: Violence by anyone shouldn't be tolerated

In the video, the 4-foot-9, 100-pound Alyounes manhandles her male victim, who seems fearful of retaliating against a woman in public. She slaps him, kicks him, spits on him, and pummels him some more, all the time screaming about his cheating on her.

The video, which lasts about eight minutes, includes footage of police arresting Alyounes after the train was stopped. Yes, she fought the officers, too. Throughout it all, passengers make comments about being late and otherwise inconvenienced - "My food getting cold," says one woman. But no one stops the beat-down.

No one rescued Genovese either. After the murder, her neighbors were accused of being callous, apathetic urbanites, though some claimed they had called police or knew someone who had.

Social scientists say bystanders typically are waiting for someone in the crowd to provide direction. But too often, as on the River Line train, there's no heroic "Let's roll" moment similar to what occurred on United Flight 93 during the 9/11 hijackings.

In Alyounes' case, too, what occurred may say something about this post-feminism era 48 years after Genovese was killed. Back then, many people saw nothing remarkable in a man's beating a woman. At least on that River Line train, passengers seemed to think it was acceptable for a woman to beat a man. It's not.

As a character in the film Boondock Saints said in reference to the Genovese case: "We must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men."