Tough town, Detroit. Walker says the cops soon realized their error and took the cuffs off. But the death of 38-year-old Deletha Word and the arrest of a hulking 19-year-old named Marten Welch for second-degree murder has embarrassed the city. Detroit now has an international reputation as a place where dozens of bystanders did little or nothing to prevent a woman from being violently assaulted over a routine fender bender, and where at least some onlookers reportedly cheered as Word either jumped or fell to her death. The crowd looks pathologically callous–a case of the “Kitty Genovese syndrome,” a theory about why most bystanders don’t try to stop a crime in progress. The Detroit police look bad, too: somehow, they muffed the initial investigation and allowed the suspect and his friends to drive away. Welch in fact was arrested fully 30 hours after the event.
According to police, the incident began shortly after 2 a.m. on Aug. 19 with a minor collision between the car driven by Word and the car driven by Welch. Word drove off and Welch, accompanied by friends, followed her onto the bridge from Belle Isle to downtown Detroit. The island is a popular place to cruise on such a summer night, and there were dozens of other cars on the bridge.
Over the next several minutes, Welch and his friends allegedly caught up with Word intraffic, and Word, in what appeared to be panicky attempt to escape, backed into Welch’s car again. Police say Welch pulled Word out of her car, ripping off some of her clothes, and pushed her down on the hood to beat her. An accomplice then held her down while Welch allegedly got a car jack that he used to smash up her car. Word broke free and ran to the railing of the bridge, where, one witness says, she threatened to kill herself. Other witnesses say Welch’s friends yelled, “Jump, bitch, jump!” Word dropped off the bridge, and Walker and Brown made their vain attempt to save her. Her body was recovered miles downstream later that day–minus a leg, which had apparently been cut off by the propeller of a passing boat.
Welch pleaded not guilty and will stand trial for second-degree homicide. But the city is in the dock as well–and some say the crowd’s failure to respond is reminiscent of the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese, a New York barmaid. According to accounts at the time, none of several dozen neighbors called police when Genovese, who was being stabbed to death just outside her apartment building, repeatedly screamed for help. “It’s a paradox,” said Andre Modigliani, a University of Michigan social psychologist. “The more people who are watching an event, the less likely any of them will be to step in and help.”
But the Belle Isle incident is more complicated than that. The reality was mass confusion, and those who saw the attack on Word had every reason to avoid an enraged and violent suspect who might well have had a gun. Although many onlookers seemed passive, police say several motorists used cellular phones to call 911; 26 people came forward to help police track down the suspect. Walker and Brown were heroes–and it is a sad footnote to a brutal story that they arrived too late.
