NEW YORK DOORMEN FIRED FOR NOT AIDING ASIAN WOMAN: IT WAS WRONG.

ICHEOKU says the two doormen do not owe the 65 year old Asian woman, victim of the vicious attack by a deranged man in New York, the duty to come to her aid or to rescue her from her attacker because they did not put her in the jeopardy. They are also not law enforcement agents whose duty is to "protect and serve" the public which would have imposed on them the duty to aid a member of the public in peril and rescue her. 

Therefore, it is wrong for The Brodsky Organization, the owners of building at 360 West 43rd Street, Manhattan, New York City, to fire the doormen who were on duty during the attack for not rushing to the aid and rescue of the victim. The attack took place outside their building, on a public sidewalk, where their duty to open and close doors at 360 West 43rd Street did not extend to. Further, the victim is not a child, whose child status would have otherwise imposed a mandatory duty to rescue a child in danger on the doormen. Lastly, there was no special relationship between the doormen and the victim.

It is in the same New York City Long Island that a doorman, Ralph Body, was fired from his job for being too nice and too accommodating; and was upbraided for going far and beyond his duties in being too kind to tenants and passersby in building 27 at 27th Street. So what if the two doormen were aware of what happened to Ralph Body, afterall they all belong to the same Trade Union and decided to mind their business as they did not want to be similarly fired for being "too nice and too accommodating", this time to a total stranger. What crime did they commit and what wrong did they do in performing their duty, which was to open and close doors at building 360 West 43rd Manhattan New York City, that should warrant their dismissal from their job. Even the police warn the public against self help and not to resist criminals when they strike but to call the police. They also tell bankers that in case of bank robbers to always give them all the money they want and try to stay alive. 

But here in New York City, the owners of a building are now telling us that they expected their employees to become vigilantes and to engage in violent self help being guardians of the surrounding streets and sidewalks near their building; and to physically intervene whenever they see someone in peril around their building. ICHEOKU is emphatic that had the two doormen intervened in the attack, the building management would have still fired them for veering off their duty post to intervene in matters outside their primary responsibility. Had they intervened and the attacker later sued them, would the owners of the building have accepted responsibility that the two doormen were their agents, acting within their authorized duty or quickly denied their action as a frolic and therefore not vicariously liable for it. 

What if the accused attacker had a concealed weapon, afterall he murdered his own biological mother, went to prison for 12 years before being paroled, and then visited the vicious attack on the victim. What if in the course of their intervention the attacker had killed the two doormen or injured them or the doormen had even killed or injured the attacker, whose responsibility will that be? Would the management not have blamed them for courting their fate by going outside their prescribed duty to intervene in a matter which does not concern them nor their job as doormen. 

The doormen did exactly what was reasonably expected of them to do in the circumstance: they immediately called 911, rushed out to help the victim and flagged down a passing police patrol vehicle to report the attack and also waited to give statements while the emergency vehicle arrived and took the victim to the hospital. This is exactly what doing something by the book which was expected of them really looks like and they should not have been fired for doing right by the woman and their employers as it was not their responsibility to fight off the attacker. 

Even in carjacking situation, the police advise against resisting or fighting the car jacker, so why should this case be any different or was it because the victim is Asian and belongs to the class of protected endangered species of America who everybody must aid in situations as this. What other thing could possibly justify the unreasonable expectations placed on the doormen that led to their firing if not some peculiar consideration due to the current political atmosphere in America where Asians are being accorded some special protection. 

In fact it is the two doormen that are actually being victimized in this matter and their Trade Union must not put up with it. They should proceed to the court immediately and have the management company reinstate the their two members back to their duty post. They did nothing wrong and there is nothing in what they did to warrant or justify their firing. They should not be singled out and punished for what a mad man did on the street side walk outside their area of authority. No rational person watching how viciously that huge beastly man attacked the woman would voluntarily put themselves in harms way by intervening in the attack. The attacker is massive and his history, although not known at the time of the attack, adds impetus to why no rational person would have intervened. If he had the heart to do that to a woman, after killing his own mother, imagine what he could possibly do to others including two intervening doormen. 

There was no other emergency protocol in the circumstance which they failed to observe, short of what they did and they also locked their building to protect their tenants from possible harm. The Brodsky Organization was wrong in firing the two doormen and they should get their jobs back and in any other event, be paid handsomely for wrongful termination of employment. Where there is no duty owed to an individual there is no expectation of help or intervention to save the individual from danger or harm. Therefore the two doormen were not wrong in failing to fight off the attacker of the Asian woman in front of their building. It may be morally wrong or somewhat viewed as a breach of Good Samaritan aiding a victim, but that only applies when an aiding bystander puts the victim in more harm. Also, it was not as if the victim sought shelter in their building and they pushed her away and into her peril. They were innocent observers of a crime and that should not cost them their jobs.