Members of society have duty to aid one another

Monday, August 17, 1998

Members of society have duty to aid one another

JUSTICE: Witness

to murder shouldn’t profit from the story

By Steven Esselman

Michael Yan’s Aug. 10 article titled, "Cashing in on tragedy
illuminates society’s problems," is about David Cash Jr., the
sickeningly apathetic witness to the assault and murder of
7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in a women’s bathroom at the Primadonna
Hotel and Casino, and his deplorable attempts to sell the young
girl’s horror for profit and notoriety.

This reader wishes to stress that Yan’s diplomatic and
mealy-mouthed prose about Cash profiting from a young girl’s murder
fell short of the proper assessment of Cash’s lack of action at the
time of the incident and of his gleeful and quick reaction once he
realized that he could receive a substantial amount of bloody money
for witnessing the incident.

Yan, although a noticeably talented writer, did not make a bold
enough statement when he described this low-life parasite. He makes
a well thought-out, balanced, fair and safe assessment of Cash and
his exploits to pawn Iverson’s story, and for that I say, shame on
you.

Yan’s "on-the-fence" position about Cash’s culpability in this
crime undermines the gravity of the situation. By not taking more
of a stand against Cash and the growing American callousness and
greed that he embodies, Yan’s own passiveness (the wolfsbane of any
opinion columnist) emerges in this article and glares harshly at
the reader.

Cash is not some average student, as Yan describes him, who has
committed no crime. He admits to witnessing an assault on a
defenseless child by his obviously disturbed friend, Jeremy
Strohmeyer, and not doing a damn thing about it. He allowed 24
minutes – 24 minutes – to elapse after witnessing the assault and
just quietly waited for his friend and for what he knew was going
to be a terrible outcome.

What else was he doing outside on that bench? Trying to
speculate in his own mind that what he saw was only a bizarre tea
party between a child and her new found 19-year-old friend? No.
Cash knew, even if he never admits it during his lifetime, after
peering over that stall that at best the child would be injured and
violated and, at worst, would be dead. And knowing this, he still
did not have the virtue to somehow put a stop to it. Yan, this guy
does not need an article, as you have written, that attempts more
to justify his actions than abhor them.

Let me make this unequivocally clear – anyone who witnesses an
assault has a moral obligation to intercede – either directly or by
seeking assistance. If he or she does not, that person is just as
liable as the one who has actively participated in the assault.

When Cash peered over the bathroom stall and noticed his friend
attacking a child, at that moment, he became irreversibly involved
in the crime. By not attempting to put a stop to his friend’s
actions, or by not attempting to find a proper authority figure who
could, Cash – in my mind – became a guilty participant in Iverson’s
death.

I believe that District Attorney Stewart Bell’s comment quoted
in Yan’s article that "witnessing a crime doesn’t make you a part
of it" should be changed to "witnessing a crime doesn’t necessarily
make you a part of it." Of course, if you witness a bank robbery
that doesn’t make you one of the robbers, but by witnessing the
assault (forget that the assault culminated in a murder) on
Iverson, by leaving after he had witnessed it and then by sitting
idly for almost a half hour after seeing this horrendous crime
without trying to stop it or getting anyone who could, Cash did
participate in a crime and, ultimately, in her death. Yan, get a
clue. Why make convenient justifications for this spineless
coward’s lack of correct and humane action?

I wish to leave the reader with this thought. Let us focus on
the true victim and not the soulless jellyfish, Cash, who has the
nerve – under the guise of victimization and deservedness – to sue
the school district for keeping him out of high school during an
ongoing investigation. Cash has the nerve to sell vomit party tapes
of himself and Strohmeyer, now of value because of a child’s death,
and to use his 15 minutes of notoriety to entice what I thought
were smart Berkeley girls.

Remember this, one of the last images that the young and once
bright eyes of Sherrice Iverson saw was the face of a potential
savior who would never answer her gag-squelched pleas for
help.Esselman is a graduate student in geography.