When someone is being harmed, and we have the power to stop it, do we step in?

Our conscience says yes, but our minds often say no.Eighteen years ago, my husband and I were coming home from church one night and the car in front of us stopped. A man and woman got out of the car and he began hitting her.My husband yelled and the man got in the car and took off. We took the woman back to our church and waited for police.They asked him to testify. He missed work to do it.But he questioned if that's why people don't get involved.What if there's nothing at stake because you're watching on television or the computer?In Chicago last week, a 15-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by several boys and the rape was broadcast on Facebook Live.Investigators told the television station reporting the crime that 40 people watched.How many people picked up the phone to call police?Zero.The video has since been taken down by Facebook. Screen images provided to the press were deemed far too graphic to share publicly.Yet, people watched and did nothing.This isn't the first case of a crime on Facebook Live.In January, Chicago police charged four young adults over a Facebook Live video of them holding a mentally disabled young white man hostage and torturing him.The video shows multiple people kicking and hitting the victim while he was tied up. They cut his scalp and burned him with cigarettes.According to Chicago police, the young man was held captive for at least 24 hours and perhaps as long as 48.Who saw it? Who reported it?Are we so desensitized by the garbage we see on television and computers that it doesn't disturb us? Maybe people watching didn't know it was real, even though a little eye icon tells you it's live.Or maybe they knew the people committing the crimes. After all, they were somehow connected on Facebook. "Snitches get stitches," one of my co-workers said, about people who don't tell because of fear of retribution.Even so, we have to question if we have become a society of observers.We comment in outrage as we sit at our computer or play on our phone, not acting. Sometimes we just troll and never even interact.Unfortunately, this is human nature. It's not just a Facebook sensation.Let's go back to Queens in 1964 when Kitty Genovese was fatally stabbed in a nice neighborhood.A man grabbed her as she tried to reach a police call box. She screamed and the neighborhood opened their windows and watched.According to The New York Times archives, a man called down from an upper window: "Let that girl alone."The assailant looked up at him and walked away.Kitty struggled to her feet.Lights went out. The killer returned and stabbed her again.Again she cried out.Nobody called police.The assailant returned and stabbed her a third time, this one fatal.The window watchers (38 of them) later said, they thought it was a lovers' quarrel. They were afraid. They didn't want to get involved.When someone finally called, the police arrived in two minutes.Fortunately, some people still take a stand.State police at Schuylkill Haven reported an incident this week about a man who began hitting a woman in a car. She was driving.She stopped the car and then turned into a driveway.When she tried to get out, the man pulled her hair.A passing motorist saw what was happening and turned around to assist. By this time the assailant and victim were outside and he had knocked her to ground and was hitting her.The motorist, who police did not name, intervened and pulled the assailant off the victim.The assailant ran off before troopers arrived, but there is a warrant for his arrest.Imagine if the motorist would have kept going. We could be reading about the woman's funeral.The good Samaritan was taking a chance of being hurt himself. He could have just called 911 and stayed safe.What he did took courage. And some would argue a degree of stupidity.But he did it, and saved a woman's life.What would you do in this situation?