Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences Read Online Free PDF Page A

frantic moments except Sophie’s three words to Karl: “Call the police!”
    Finally, he did.
    AT 3:50 A.M., the 102nd precinct of the New York City Police Department in Richmond Hill, Queens, received a call of an assault on a woman at 82-62 Austin Street in Kew Gardens. Patrolman Peter Volber responded to the scene at 3:52 a.m.
    Officer Volber parked his patrol car in the railroad station lot next to a late model red sports car. The sports car—a 1963 Fiat—had been parked here less than forty minutes before by the victim he now approached. The walk from the parking lot to the spot where he found her was a mere fifty feet.
    The police officer took one look at the mangled woman lying on the floor and immediately radioed back to his precinct. He reported a serious assault and requested an ambulance and assistance of duty detectives from the 102nd precinct. The desk dispatcher put him through to the second-floor squad room, and Officer Volber briefed Detective Mitchell Sang: white female, unconscious, apparent stab wounds sustained from a serious assault.
    “How serious?” Sang asked.
    “You might want to notify Homicide.”
    AWAITING THE AMBULANCE, Sophie stayed with Kitty and spoke words of comfort that she could only hope were somehow registering. Greta Schwartz and Karl Ross stood shivering outside the door of 82-62 as Officer Volber asked the standard questions.
    “What is her name?”
    “Kitty Genovese.”
    Officer Volber scribbled in his notebook and looked at the husky man who had answered. “And what are you doing here, sir?”
    “I live here,” Ross pointed toward the brown door to the hallway. “Upstairs.”
    He appeared very agitated. Considering the horrific scene in his hallway and that he obviously knew the victim, this was understandable. Ross began babbling about how he had heard cries for help.
    Mitchell Sang and Bruno Pokstis, duty detectives, arrived in Kew Gardens at 4:05 a.m. Based on what Volber relayed in his call in toSang, Sang had placed a call of his own to Detectives John Carroll and William “Jerry” Byrnes of the Queens Homicide Squad. He also notified his squad boss, Lieutenant Bernard Jacobs.
    Mitch Sang was thirty-nine years old, a tall, powerful-looking man with a shaved head. He cut an imposing figure and looked like what he was—a tough, no-nonsense detective. Sang was a duty detective—a generalist, as opposed to his colleagues in the special Queens Homicide Squad. Known as a tireless investigator, he worked his cases with the tenacity and diligence that are the hallmarks of a good detective. Even if this did turn out to be a homicide, Sang would still consider it his case.
    He felt this even more strongly when he looked down at the young woman lying in the hallway. Regardless of how long they’ve been on the job or how much brutality they’ve seen, few police officers ever become dispassionate about savagery done to women and children. Sang was no exception.
    It looked like a sexual assault—an extraordinarily brutal one, heartless both in its violence and in the way the victim had been left, severely wounded, exposed, and helpless. On the floor next to her were falsies from her bra. A used sanitary napkin, presumably picked from between her legs during the assault, had been tossed aside. A crime not only savage, but bold . The hallway was separated from the sidewalk by only a single door. The stairs led to the inner doors of two apartments just one floor above. Hardly a secluded location for what had obviously been a massive attack.
    The victim was still alive when Detectives John Carroll and Jerry Byrnes of Homicide arrived at 4:20 a.m. The hallway was so narrow that the detectives had to be extra cautious stepping inside so as not to disturb the victim or the crime scene. They leaned in with scanning flashlights as Detective Carroll carefully knelt down to check for signs of life. Sang and Pokstis had already done this, but as the senior homicide investigator at the