Casey Lartigue remembers the time he and his friends did the right thing while the rest of the world tried to look the other way:
It was New Year's Eve, I was visiting from South Korea. I had been overseas for about a year. My best friend and I were hanging out with his roommate, party-hopping. As we drove through one neighborhood we heard some people celebrating the New Year by shooting with guns. Apparently they weren't shooting at anyone or anything in particular, just shooting in the air. When we lost contact with his roommate at some point during the night, we started taking cabs from place to place.
Somewhat stranded at 1 a.m. when it got tougher to hail cabs, we stopped at the Mayflower Hotel to call our girlfriends as well as my best friend's roommate, hoping he would eventually answer his beeper. We went back outside of the hotel to consider our options. We weren't that far from my friend's home, so walking wasn't out of the question. Suddenly, a guy came running, yelling:
"HEY! THERE'S A WOMAN BEING BEATEN DOWN THE STREET."
After reading his posting I was infuriated at the hotel staff for not even doing the easiest of things which would have been to call the police and ashamed of the columnist for doctoring the facts and yet proud that Lartigue and his friends did what was necessary in spite of the possible repercussions.