If You Think You See The Truth, Look Again

Unfortunately, it wasn't just Roberts -- that video was all over the web and people were drawing their own conclusions -- most not knowing who Roberts is or what he said in the local paper. I agree that a silent film leaves a lot to the viewer's imagination but it is what it is. The people in it do stand off and the cars do drive by while Mr. Torres lies motionless in the street. Thirty seconds seems like an eternity on that clip -- especially for Mr. Torres.
By the way, the clip is probably more of the sensational variety than instructive -- I doubt there are many lessons being derived from it.

The video may be without sound, but the pictures say a lot...and the message is disheartening.

Body language alone shows most of the bystander's nonchalance.

Thank you for bringing the Park Street hit and run into perspective. Just as sound bites distort people's perceptions of political issues, video bites distort people's judgment of real events. As you point out, there is no sound to help gauge how people are reacting. The whole scene, up to the arrival of the police, takes only 90 seconds. People approached the victim in less than 60 seconds. It may not be TV cop show reaction times, but I think it's a fair representation of what most videos of accident and crimes scenes in real life would show.

While a few people DID call 911, how many people who swerved around his body laying in the street actually stopped to see what was going on, check the man to see if he was even alive or even to hold his hand and give him some comfort until the police showed up? Any compassion? Certainly not from the cars that hit him, the drivers who went around him or those pathetic bystanders.

So what is the follow up? Have the 2 cars that were chasing each other been found? Are they even looking for them?

Bonnie wrote:

While a few people DID call 911, how many people who swerved around his body laying in the street actually stopped to see what was going on, check the man to see if he was even alive or even to hold his hand and give him some comfort until the police showed up? Any compassion? Certainly not from the cars that hit him, the drivers who went around him or those pathetic bystanders.
So what is the follow up? Have the 2 cars that were chasing each other been found? Are they even looking for them?

The man on the motorcycle could have easily caught up and captured the license plate number of the car rather than circle around to 'view the body' on the road.

I think we all imagine ourselves or our family members in that same position...alone, lying on the street as a victim of a hit-and-run...No words I think of can express my "sadness". We see rudeness and lack of caring all around us on a day-to-day basis, but in our hearts, we hope people would at least SEEM compassionate in a human being's moment of need like this...well, i guess I am very disappointed in humanity today!

If a car or motorcycle had chased after them (speeding) and if, god forbid, something else happened to them, they would have been chastized for interfering with a criminal situation. Thank you, Colin for adding context and perspective to this tragic and horrendous situation. We weren't there. And except for the video, we only have bits and pieces of what happened or what people did or didn't do. I would think that witnessing something that tragic, it would be easy to freeze up with fear or the immediate trauma of it all. I'd like to think that I'd respond right away, but I have no way of knowing that not having been in a situation like that.

I was driving through Hartford in the wee hours of the morning some years ago, and a person was lying in the street. I saw three cars swerve by her. It was a miracle she hadn't been hit.(It was two a.m, Christmas morning -- people had places to go.) I stopped and opened my door so that she could come into my car. I drove her home.

That's what people can do. That's what I did.

I want to live in a world like that, and that's why I opened my door.

All is well in the liberal world of Colin McEnroe as he blames the police once again for societal ills. When a community allows a "former" gang member to serve as mayor, and the states largest newspaper ENDORSES him; problems will follow. Failed liberal policies like welfare, unchecked immigration, bilingual education causing future employees to lack English language skills, social promotion in schools, all lead to gang infestation in a perpetually poor economy. Media like McEnroe fan the flames to sell newspapers and promote their own insane liberal beliefs by attacking and undermining police. Chief Roberts was right and pointed out a painful truth. McEnroe will never admit people like him have hurt the city with insane liberal agendas. I for one am sick of paying the highest taxes in the nation to pay for a capital city that looks like a third world country. McEnroe if only your intellect was a quarter the size of your ego.

Re Chief Robert's 'public temper tantrum'.
You sir are off base. The purpose of this article was to drum up sales of your Paper. Shame on you! Only an idiot would characterize the Chief's comments as a public temper tantrum. The Chief was obviously frustrated and outraged over the incident and his expressions of his frustration and moral outrage are, under the circumstances understandable! It is refreshing when public officials provide honest feed back on issues.

Passive bystanders are not unique to Hartford.

During a trip to the friendly Midwestern city of Chicago about ten years ago, when the August heat was sweltering and the humidity even worse, I happened upon a sidewalk scene downtown where an unkempt elderly woman wearing far too many clothes for the hot weather had passed out. It happened in the early afternoon near an office building where workers were going to and fro across the plaza. Bystanders were just standing there looking at her. I knelt down and put her head in my lap until emergency personnel arrived.

Different city and different circumstances. Why didn’t anyone help that woman?

This is an excellent editorial. I have followed McEnroe for years, and he is right on target with his interpretation of this tragic event. I can't imagine how the rest of the media could interpret this event as evidence of Hartford's diminishing humanity. The city isn't perfect, but, as McEnroe said, the people of the city didn't disgrace themselves on May 30. Fear mongering journalists and Daryl Roberts did, though.

Looser Generation-You are wrote:

Re Chief Robert's 'public temper tantrum'.
You sir are off base. The purpose of this article was to drum up sales of your Paper. Shame on you! Only an idiot would characterize the Chief's comments as a public temper tantrum. The Chief was obviously frustrated and outraged over the incident and his expressions of his frustration and moral outrage are, under the circumstances understandable! It is refreshing when public officials provide honest feed back on issues.

It appears to me that the chief didn't actually have very many details surrounding the incident. Maybe his frustration was more about his inability to actually get his department to work solving crime in the city; his moral outrage sounds more like defensive reflection of any criticism of his department's poor handling of the investigation. He might have more credibility with me if he actually finds the hit and runners.

Man, Hartford and Perez got SLAMMED in the Sunday Courant. It's about time!
When will the Mayor wake up and realize his city is at rock bottom. The suburbs have know this for years and the rest of the country now knows.

As usual, we find it far easier to generate media coverage, if we could call this flurry of response that, to violence or perceived poor behavior. What a shame that we cannot get coverage for the daily good work that transpires here in Hartford.

Or, for that matter, that we can't get any critical investigative coverage of school-related developments such as LEF, Community in Schools or the new School Community Partnership: but one has to read articles critical of the public library that end up fueling negative invective towards an institution (HPL) that needs greater valuation and support. But I digress...

What I wanted to mention, that I have not seen talked about, regarding what happened to Nick ("why was he walking on those streets?") is that Nick was on foot in Frog Hollow because he lives in that community. We all used to see him daily doing the daily coffee and conversation hang at La Paloma Sabanera before it closed. So this was truly a neighborhood crime!

Thanks for continuing to speak on and up, Colin.

Visit my blog at http://stephenhaynes.blogspot.com/ .

Stephen Haynes

I get two things from this - 1- you don’t like the people of west hartford, 2- you dont like chief roberts. I hate to say it, but no matter how many called 911- the video says it all. No one rushed to help, no one even stopped in the street, and no one had the least bit compassion. I'm sorry but hartford is a toxic city. How else can you explain those on the sidewalk witnessing the event and doing nothing to aid the man they saw get hit by a car. I know the people of blue back square would have rushed to his aid. can you say that of hartford-

Courant endorsed Perez wrote:

All is well in the liberal world of Colin McEnroe as he blames the police once again for societal ills. When a community allows a "former" gang member to serve as mayor, and the states largest newspaper ENDORSES him; problems will follow. Failed liberal policies like welfare, unchecked immigration, bilingual education causing future employees to lack English language skills, social promotion in schools, all lead to gang infestation in a perpetually poor economy. Media like McEnroe fan the flames to sell newspapers and promote their own insane liberal beliefs by attacking and undermining police. Chief Roberts was right and pointed out a painful truth. McEnroe will never admit people like him have hurt the city with insane liberal agendas. I for one am sick of paying the highest taxes in the nation to pay for a capital city that looks like a third world country. McEnroe if only your intellect was a quarter the size of your ego.

There are many sides to this issue, but I would suggest that you need to look at the collapse of the working class in Connecticut, and in the U.S. This once bastion of security is now largely gone from our shores, sent overseas in pursuit of 'shareholder value' by CEO's intent on lining their own pockets.

If you take away the means by which our society prospered, what then is left but despair and hard times.

You mention unchecked immigration, I would suggest you meant to say unchecked illegal immigration... this is a root cause of many ills that are now among us. Thirty years of turning a blind eye and suddenly we have a significant problem.

In summary, I believe the U.S. has to reinvent itself. The post WWII prosperity has been wasted and sent abroad. Those things that made us strong are no more, from the family farm to a large, talented manufacturing sector. What next is the question, and I certainly don't have that answer or even a suggestion.

Colin I completely agree. I feel that the Police Chief would rather stay in the Spotlight than actually sit down with members of the community and figure out a way to make Hartford a better place. I've literally seen police officers sitting in their cars perusing the internet while young men are across the street selling drugs. I've watched Chief Roberts on television telling lies about crime being down, for the sake of making himself and Eddie Perez look good. When in all actuality Eddie Perez hasnt done anything remotely or relevantly helpful to the city besides redoing park street. The same place where poor Mr. Torres was hit. Its all a ploy to get young professionals to move to Hartford and buy property. I guess thats what "revitalizing hartford" really means to these two men. Instead of cleaning up the streets with some help from the people that actually live here. It saddens me. I love Hartford but with the police in Chief Roberts hands pretty soon it wont even be safe to walk down the street. The other day a man was shot in the back while driving down Edgewood Street. But I guess to Chief ROberts thats not a "police issue". Like he stated when Mr. Carbone was beaten. Or maybe it was a toxic problem.