SAN ANTONIO – A viral video showing the moments when a car struck two women in the parking lot of a Northwest Side bar has been viewed by almost 3 million people.
The cellphone video then captured the car speeding off and the two victims on the ground suffering from injuries.
It is still unclear what started the incident in the parking of The Well, in the 5500 block of UTSA Boulevard, around 2:15 a.m. Thursday.
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During the attack, multiple people are recording the crime but it appears in the footage that no one bothered to call 911.
"If you picture that same exact situation 40 years ago, I don't think it would (have) played out that differently," said Erin Sumner, associate professor of human communication at Trinity University.
"It's just someone might have been jotting down the license plate rather than filming it, right," Sumner said.
Sumner said that sort of behavior is categorized as the bystander effect.
"If I see a situation and someone needs help and it's just me there, I might not be the best person to help, but I'm the only one there, so most people will help," said Sumner.
That changes when there's a crowd.
"What we see in situations where there is an emergency or someone is in need of help, the more people that are present, the less likely people are to help," Sumner said.
"The explanation for why is when we are an emergency and there's a lot of people present we feel a sense of reduced responsibility," she said.
Sumner said a few other factors also come into play.
"Some of it could be that sense of, 'I was there.' We are used to posting our lives, and documenting them is a way to do that," Sumner said. "Some of it is probably tied up in this current sense of citizen journalism, right. Like, we can get our story out there. We were there. We need to make sure the story is correct."
San Antonio police said the incident is still under investigation and no arrests have been made yet in the case.
