The story about SEPTA riders filming a rape instead of intervening is a horrible lie

When I heard a woman was raped on a SEPTA train as passengers watched and filmed the assault but did nothing to stop the attack and did not call 911 I was immediately suspicious.

Something about the story did not appear quite right.

Yet there was no evidence to prove there was anything wrong with the official report.

SEPTA and law enforcement officials from Upper Darby said on the night of Oct 13 a woman was riding the SEPTA Market-Frankford elevated train when she was raped as a carload of riders stood idly by and record it on their cell phone cameras and did not intervene or call police.

The account of what happened came directly from public officials who would have been expected to have talked to witnesses and viewed surveillance cameras.

Officials did not express any uncertainty about the facts of what happened. They expressed outrage.

“I’m appalled by those who did nothing to help this woman,’ said Upper Darby Police Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt, said after the arrest of Fiston Ngoy, 35, who was charged with rape and related offenses.

“I can tell you that people were holding their phones up in the direction of this woman being attacked,” SEPTA chief Thomas Nestel III told the press.

The story of callous and cowardly Philadelphians who sat idly by and watched a woman being raped garnered national and international coverage.

“Pennsylvania train passengers held up phones ‘to record rape’ instead of intervening, say authorities,” blared the headline from the Independent, a British online newspaper.

But the narrative that passengers watched and “filmed it for their own gratification instead of calling the police” is false, said Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer.

“There is a narrative out there that people sat on the El train and watched this transpire and took videos for their own gratification. That is simply not true. It did not happen,” said Stollsteimer.

“I saw the video where they talked about these people acting like there was a group of people just callously recording this incident,” Stollsteimer said. “That’s simply just not true, and it’s contradicted by the videotape, the security tape that SEPTA has already provided us.”

Stollsteimer said a passenger notified police about the assault and filmed it for evidence, not as a voyeur as SEPTA and Upper Darby police officials told the media.

In addition, surveillance video shows the train was mostly empty, with a handful of people getting on and off. Stollsteimer said it’s likely those riders didn’t realize what was happening.

It is outrageous that a woman was raped on a SEPTA train. It is outrageous that before checking all the facts SEPTA officials gave a false narrative, picked up by media across the world.

Why would SEPTA officials slander the bystanders of this attack? Their actions not only contributes to an erosion of public trust but could also impede the investigation because witnesses may be reluctant to come forward after being so widely public condemned.

There should be consequences for officials who mislead the public.

Irv Randolph is an award-winning journalist. You can follow him on Twitter @IrvRandolph and at the RandolphReport@substack.com