NATIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE:

New York Times’ Article Recognizes Role of Juveniles in Growing Homeless Attacks 

On February 15, 2008, New York Times published an article entitled “Attacks on the Homeless Rise, With Youths Mostly to Blame” by Amy Green.  The article sought to turn the nation’s attention to a growing tragedy: youth attacks against homeless individuals. 

Singling out one incident to tell a powerful story, the article introduces the world to Warren Messner, an 18-year-old serving 22 years in a Florida correctional institution.   Just three years earlier, he and some friends, under the influence of drugs, fatally beat Michael Roberts, a homeless man living on the streets of Daytona Beach. 

Holding serious remorse, Messner used his interview with the New York Times to express how senseless and inhumane his attack was.  To this day, he still has no rationale or justification for his actions. 

Messner’s crime is not an isolated offense.  The article shared statistics, provided by the National Coalition for the Homeless, stating 142 unprovoked attacks against homeless individuals occurred in 2006.  Many of those attacks occurred in the same state as Messner’s incident, and the majority of those convicted for perpetrating such attacks are not even over the age of 21.  

As a response, local and national advocates are mobilizing to correct brutality against homeless persons. Miami-Dale County Public Schools have adopted a homeless awareness curriculum and the National Coalition for the Homeless is establishing Faces of Homelessness Speaker Bureaus’ in 12 Florida cities as a way to educate and prevent future attacks. 

Your commute from work is going just as it would any other day when you notice a group of teenagers, with bats, bottles, and chains, hovering around a homeless individual. As you walk closer, you notice the gathering of adolescents verbally abusing and striking the vulnerable adult. What would you do?

That question has become the basis of a new ABC show that captures public reactions to ethical dilemmas. In their March 4, 2008 episode, hired actors simulated physical and verbal abuse towards a homeless individual on the streets of New Jersey. Hidden cameras captured the responses of local residents.

In the first experiment, teenagers convincingly staged an attack on a homeless man.

Within moments of beginning the experiment, ABC cameras captured a variety of reactions. Some pedestrians stared in shock. Some walked off to enlist help. Others quickly mobilized and challenged the dehumanization of a member of their society.

“What are you doing? Put that bat down. That’s a human being.” A middle-aged woman shouted at the teens participating in the experiment. Another elderly man reached for the bat and scolded the young boys for their lack of respect.

In another convincing simulation, the homeless man was replaced by a homeless woman. The change in the victim’s gender yielded faster responses from community members. Spectators were quicker to risk their personal safety and resort to physical intervention. In comparison to the male victim, additional community members followed-up with the homeless woman with concerns of well-being.

After being informed of the experiment, many of those that were pro-active in stopping the abuse communicated a sense of communal justice and basic human rights as their rationale for action. To watch post-experimental interviews and behind the scenes footage, visit http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/WhatWouldYouDo.

Despite the broadcast of this communal justice in action, many homeless individuals continue to fall victim to unprovoked and violent attacks from other members of society, particularly male teenagers. According to Mary Brosnahan, the executive director of New York’s Coalition for the Homeless, many individuals have gone beyond viewing people without homes as homeless to viewing them as subhuman. The result has been a promotion of sports and activities that incite violence against a demographic that lacks a shelter for protection.

The latest statistics from this report confirm this culture of violence. In 2006, 142 assaults against the homeless were reported. Of those, twenty were fatal. In 2007, those numbers increased significantly to 160 assaults with 28 fatalities.