Just ran across this thread. Kitty Genovese was murdered in the middle of the night on a dark, empty street. No one about to rush to her aid. Of course, it is now known that many, many people called the police to alert them that a terrible crime was being committed. Her death was not ignored - that was a media myth perpetrated against NYC. It’s now debunked.
I know the story, I also know most of its is myth, I mention it as a retort to the ‘we have killed the Rigby killers stone dead’ posters.
Whilst some of the Genovese story is myth, I am not convinced by the modern revisionism, such as the whitewash A Crime To Remember episode a while ago.
The bottom line is whilst ‘38 people did nothing’ may be a myth, there was still imo far too much inaction, outright cowardice and failure to act that night by people. And lets not forget that 10 years later a young woman would be battered to death in Manhattan and people heard her screams, pleas for help and also did nothing.