On October 24th, 2009, nearly twenty witnesses watched as a 15-year-old girl was brutally assaulted and raped outside a homecoming dance in Richmond, California. Bystanders who witness a conflict have to choose between interfering or walking away, whether or not to take responsibility for another person's problem. The bystanders are those who are present during a conflict, however, do not offer assistance. Should bystanders take the responsibility of the conflict? The importance is that people have been abused, threatened, sexually assaulted and even abducted; yet bystanders surround the environment that could have intervened. On the other hand, bystanders who do intervene reduce the number of crimes. Conventionally, there is a contrary relationship between the number of bystanders and the chance of help. This implies that the likelihood of getting help reduces with an increase in the number of bystanders (Graham 102). Studies have also shown that many social-psychological causes that constantly demoralize bystander motivation to aid other people in distress. .
A bystander has five motivations to intervene when there is trouble, and with the five points is a "conceptual framework"" of their influence. The motives are emotional reactions, moral evaluating, social evaluating, interpretation of harm, and intervention of self-value. With these motivations of intervention, they help support those bystanders of who analyze what is going on during the time of trouble. The motives also depend on what the situation is, such as if the problem had gone too far. The feeling of empathy is one of the emotional reactions that bystanders undergo when they feel awful for the victim. The feeling of fear is another emotion, which bystanders get when they don't wish to be the next prey. Social evaluation is the analysis of the bystander's social status, and where friends and foes establish an impact to the situation.