I was maybe 5 or 6 and the neighbor's wife across the street was being taken out of the house by ambulance. I knew the neighbor's name, Bill Poppy, but never knew the wife's name, or even what she looked like.
A cluster of neighbors were gathering on the sidewalk in front of the house. I was watching from one of our living room windows which lined up directly with the neighbor's house. I might have asked my mother what was going on, but she gently told me it wasn't polite to "gape" and led me away from the window. My mother didn't go outside to join the cluster.
Because of that lesson I've never been one to stand around and watch someone's distress. Accidents on the road are impossible not to look at because everyone else is rubber-necking and slowing down. You can't very well leave the car and the road and avert your eyes.
When we finally got out of Tower One on that fateful day on 9/11 I was standing on the corner of Fulton and Church Streets with two of my co-workers looking up at what was the unbelievable sight of two buildings burning. Coming down the stairs I figured we'd be back in the office by the end of the week, not having any idea of why we had to leave the building. Looking up I muttered to myself that this was going to take a lot longer than I thought, never yet knowing that no one was ever going back into buildings that would soon no longer exist.
At some point looking up I think someone remarked that someone had jumped and was headed for certain death. I remember thinking I'm not going to stand here and watch people jumping to their death. If I stayed longer no doubt someone would be awarding points on the dive they were taking.
I advised my colleagues to go home. I headed uptown on West Broadway, hoping to get to Penn Station. Cellphones were not as ubiquitous in 2001 as they are now. No doubt those looking up would have whipped out their cellphones if they had them and captured people jumping. Not for me, with or without a cellphone.
You see it everywhere. People reflexively popping out their cellphone to either take a picture, or get videos of some action. The resulting images cannot be great taken from the vantage of even a good seat at a ballpark or a concert. But it's basically harmless, They think they are a news camera and they're going to get something to remind them they were there.
Less playful is the use of a cellphone to record an unfolding crime on the subway, or sidewalk. The instinct is to record, not help. Admittedly, not helping might be the wiser choice if it puts you in danger. And of course the video might help law enforcement later.
But Friday's use of cellphones held high to capture the flames of someone who has just set himself on fire was nothing short of grotesque and beyond a sense of decent propriety. Of what use were these assholes going to make of their taking images and videos of a troubled soul who has just set himself on fire and who naturally died overnight. Show the video at a cookout? Admittedly no one could do anything unless you had a fire extinguisher, which a news crew did have and put to use.
There were plenty of news cameras around because of their presence for the Trump hush-money trial progressing in Manhattan criminal court nearby. CNN was roundly criticized for continuing to show the immolation and commenting at first that it was an active shooter. The broadcaster, a legal analyst, Laura Coates, was vividly describing the smell of flesh burning and the smell of the vapors from the accelerant Max Azzarello poured on himself and then lit.
Basically they were in the right place at the wrong time to televise and comment on an active suicide, and not an "active shooter" as they first reported. There were those who thought Ms. Coates should get an award, a pay raise and promotion for her reporting. Why? Just because she happened to be there when a very troubled soul set himself on fire and told us what the scene smelled like?
The mind boggles.
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