Reading some of the comments, it appears to be a cultural thing, an adversion to physical violence. It was apparent those people had never witnessed first hand that typical ghetto intimidation.......
That’s the crux of the issue; they aren’t used to seeing this among themselves, or in public and against an elderly citizen of all things. To them, that sort of behavior is incomprehensible and very shocking. There is a totally different culture and likely they didn’t think that it was even really happening.