Inaction makes bystanders complicit in boy's death

Editor's Note: A 9-year-old boy was beaten to death by a 30-year-old mentally ill neighbor near the boy's home in Changsha, Hunan province, on Tuesday. China Daily writer Li Yang comments:

What has transformed the tragedy, the latest in a series of violent attacks involving people with mental health problems in recent years, from a local news story to a hot topic nationwide is that people living in the same neighborhood, including employees of the property management company of the community witnessed the violent attack, which lasted for 29 minutes, without anyone trying to stop it.

After calling the police, who arrived with an ambulance 30 minutes after the brutal act started, and conveniently one minute after the attacker's father rushed to the site and put his son under control, the bystanders had done nothing except record the incident on their mobile phones from a safe distance.