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On March 9, 70-year-old Katan Khaimov went for a walk. He started at his West Hollywood apartment and was later found dead with stab wounds near Poinsetta Park, which is in Los Angeles at the WeHo border. For over an hour, Khaimov cried for help, according to the LA Times.
The fact that Khaimov was slain has been hard enough for his neighborhood to accept. But the awful coda of his life has added to the soul-searching. Neighbors, it turns out, heard him dying -- crying for help after being stabbed in the stomach -- for more than an hour before anyone called the police.Officials say several residents in Khaimov's neighborhood, which straddles the cities of West Hollywood and Los Angeles, believed his moans were the sounds of a vagrant. Cars also passed by while he was lying next to the street, still alive, his head and one arm flopped over the curb.
LAPD's Capt. Clay Farrell of the Hollywood Division told the Times that he's not surprised. "Farrell acknowledged that residents' perception that they are less safe -- 'right or wrong' -- is all that matters. Residents are often forced to weigh their concern for others against their own safety, and many times, Farrell said, 'people opt out' -- opt not to get involved."
A lesson can be learned here for all: it never hurts to call the police to do there job. Information is power, right? So give the police information of what's happening on the streets and they'll assess what to do. The more intel the public gives police, the better they can do to help a neighborhood. A good first step for Los Angeles residents? Get to know your Senior Lead Officer (SLO) -- every neighborhood has one. Call 3-1-1 and say you're looking for your LAPD Senior Lead Officer for your neighborhood. They'll ask you questions and direct you to the right place. If they don't, leave a comment here.
Photo by CarbonNYC via Flickr
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there's a psychological term for this "the uninvolved bystander effect" first noted in the 50s with Kitty Genovese's murder.
I definitely support getting to know your SLO. I just recently met mine, and he is super helpful. I also gave my neighbors the SLO's info.
if you think your neighbor will get involved and vice versa, you're just perpetuating the uninvolved bystander effect.
The fact that this story is more saddening than surprising tells you something about the time we live in...
I live three blocks north of where the incident occured. Its not uncommon to see a homeless man laying on the sidewalk or hear moans or screams. (also, the area is condensed with a high vehicle and pedestrian traffic). You become desensitized to the abstract noises and images around you because of the frequency of them. It takes a closer observation to discover the truth, and on a daily basis, how do you discern?
I would say that it's not our job to discern. If someone is calling for help, whether it is real or not, we assist them by calling the proper people.
If it ends up being some crazy person that the police have to keep coming out and wasting their time on, they will deal with it. LAPD analyzes all incoming calls and reports on frequency of calls from a certain location. When it hits 10 or more times, the captain of the station will go to the Senior Lead Officer for that area and say "hey, what's up? Find out what's happening and solve it."
That's why the street intel is important. Give the info the to the police and let them decide how to handle it.
"it never hurts to call the police to do there job"
Not "there" job. THEIR job!! Oy...
Given the way the article was written to imply someone was calling for help, this is from the comments posted on LA Times:
When I went to the neighborhood meeting, it was clear to me that the neighbors who heard it thought it sounded like a cat moaning or someone who was drunk. They did not think it sounded like a man, homeless or not, calling for help and dying.