Editorial: Fear or indifference?

Saturday, May 19, 2007 | 6:51 a.m.

It is hard to fathom that anyone would beat a 91-year-old man in the face and head.

But it is even more difficult to watch the surveillance video of Leonard Sims' brutal beating and see five people standing nearby watching, yet doing nothing.

Sims was in the parking lot of a Detroit liquor store on May 5 when a young man approached and asked for a light for his cigarette.

The young man then began punching Sims in the face and head as Sims stood pinned between his open car door and another parked car. The attacker struck Sims 21 times before knocking the older man to the ground and stealing his car.

Someone evidently reported the attack.

But the surveillance video - aired on several television networks - shows that none of the people standing one car-length away from the attack intervened on Sims' behalf.

Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist, told ABC News on Tuesday that the incident "tells the story of a community that's either too fearful or deadened to have the outrage to get in the way of somebody being attacked."

Fearful or not, such indifference is difficult to understand when recalling how Virginia Tech professor Liviu Librescu selflessly placed himself between his students and an armed gunman last month, or how Wesley Autrey threw himself atop a person who had fallen into the path of an oncoming subway train in New York City in January.

In speaking with ABC News this week, Sims' wife said those who hesitate to get involved in another's plight must "Speak up! Stand up! Get involved, because it's not right. It's not right at all."