Mope-Rah at it Again

She is so close to actually breaking through on something. You can see it, but she just can't make the last connection:

• There is much praise for good Samaritans.
  
  These strangers often put their own lives at risk trying to save others from peril.
  
  Sometimes, the news media or the police recognize these heroic efforts, but quite often good Samaritans disappear without anyone ever knowing their names.
  
  In 2013, two unidentified good Samaritans foiled a rape attempt near a CTA Orange Line station by coming to the aid of an 18-year-old woman who was thrown to the ground in the attack.
  
  Last week, we saw a very different response to a situation in which it was clear someone was in desperate need of help. A young woman riding a CTA Red Line train alone in the early hours of the morning was trying to fight off a rapist when the train pulled into the North/Clybourn stop, and a man got on.
  
  According to the woman, he attacked her, pulling down her pants and underwear. She was screaming for help when the stranger stumbled onto the scene.
  
  But instead of trying to make the attacker stop, or pushing the emergency call button, or even dialing 911, the man turned around and left the train.

Mope-rah heaps scorn on the witness. Rightfully? Who knows. Most people aren't that good in a one-on-one encounter. We certainly aren't as good as we used to be so many years ago...time robs us of vision, reflexes, recovery time, etc. It happens to all of us. Mope-rah doesn't describe the age or condition of the "failed" hero.

Would we have intervened? Most certainly. But we would have had something that the good Samaritan probably didn't have, something that would equalize the odds, especially if he was frail, untested, hesitant about his odds taking on an assailant in an empty train car with no one else around to help, something that he was banned from carrying on a CTA train. Remember, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away - more so in the Mass Transit Unit.

But Mope-rah doesn't make that leap, probably for the same reason the stranger turned away from a criminal act in his presence. You can almost feel the inner-conservative begging to come out of Mope-rah's shadow. Maybe one day....