How’s About Doing Something Useful? Cell Phone Cameras and the Un-Involved

In this world, there is hardly anyone without a camera cell phone. The eyewitness to life recorders on our phones have become a common everyday benefit, cameras record the best of our lives, friends out together, selfies, baby births, weddings, and the list goes on and on. There is, however, a dark side. If there is a criminal situation, or crime in progress, or a tragedy, some youthful under 30 year old will be filming video for posterity with their phones.

Ok, you wannabe Steven Spielberg’s, you’re catching and recording useful evidence that law enforcement can use in locating and prosecuting the offender. Yippee, so you think you’re a hero? Not quite, how much better would it have been if you had rendered immediate aid, versus continuing to video and the obvious aftermath with the yellow tape being stretched around the crime scene, and some body lying there. WTH ever happened to the days of rendering aid, damn it!

This new world of the un-involved is shameful and downright disgusting. Hey, did you ever think that the victim could have used some help? Or that maybe the only involved person who stepped into face the aggressors could have used an additional strong arm? Hmmm? We are a society in need of heroes, but certainly we cannot count on you camera-phone-carrying Wimpey’s to be heroes. How has it come down to this? What is the excuse for being so totally void of humanity?

Thankfully there are ordinary people who, when they see a need, they meet the challenge head on. No one has to ask or say a word, they step in and do what needs to be done.
Case in point, a car slammed into a motorcyclist; he then ended up being trapped underneath the car. Then the car ignited, several, and I do mean several men stepped into the situation, tipping the car while others pulled the unconscious kid out from under.

Or a drowning victim caught in a rip tide, sometimes the Good Samaritan dies while trying to assist. I would have to take that chance, because seriously, I could not live with myself if I did not do something to help. In case you’re wondering, filming is not helping.

Or the Highway Patrol officer who is seen in his dash cam video getting jumped on and is in a fight for his life, as several vehicles just speed by. How can anyone just watch someone getting the b-Jesus kicked out of them and not do something? How can people not stop, I just don’t get it.

Thankfully the involved sometimes do show up on a scene. In one case a rather large black female saw what was happening on the side of the highway, and came to the rescue of the officer. What she did kept the attacker occupied until backup got there. Being involved should be ordinary, not extraordinary.

All in all, humanity needs to win out in all our decisions, because that’s what makes us truly human.

Image: Courtesy of: http://regardingnannies.com/2011/11/what-can-your-cell-phone-camera-be-used-for/