People who photograph and film the misery and pain of others

[Bejazzled]

Imo are the scum of the earth.
These photos (stills from tv footage) appear to show one man and one woman doing just that rather than offering to help the injured man on the ground.

Right at the start there was a picture on twitter - a man fallen off the bridge onto the lower level - he was bleeding and with an obvious broken leg (didn't take much looking to work that out).

There was about four, possibly more, people stood looking at him (not filming I don't think). Picture was taken from the bridge. I can only assume whoever took the photo and twitted it did it so quickly after it happened the stander byers hadn't reacted yet. (I'm assuming this because I can't accept no one would check or speak to the injured man).

Pretty gross. No idea of it's still on twitter.

Whilst I think the 'right' reaction is to help by administering first aid, crowd control, calling for help, something practical like that - the police do always ask for video footage/photos to be sent to them. So presumably it is useful somehow?

tizzy that photograph really upset me, as I realised it was possibly the last photograph that his family would see of him and there was no one comforting him.

There was a follow up photograph (not deliberately) of the coroners tent erected where his body lay this evening.

It's heart wrenchingly sad. I will never, ever not at least comfort someone or hold their hands, even if they are dead, after seeing that, in an event like today (hopefully I am never in one).

OP haven't you just shared this photo of the pain and misery of others?

It says more that most were trying to help, it was only the odd twat uploading to Twitter. You can't fix stupid.

I can't stand these 'I would never do that, I would be straight in and helping' comments.

Unless you've been involved in an incident like this, you don't know how you would react. Faced with having just dodged serious injury or death yourself and now faced with a dying man at your feet you might suffer a bit of shock or delayed reaction maybe? Or it superhero night on Mumsnet?

We'd all like to think we'd do our best, but ffs these people have just had probably the worst day of their lives, maybe we could withhold judgement on their split second reactions for a day or so?

What withTwoGiantBoys said. Why on earth would you repost that photo showing the victim?

Sorry, I should have said as well that you could have made your point without posting the photos again.

It's bad enough that people do do those types of things, I remember the air crash in Shoreham (sp?) a few years ago and that there were people filming the aftermath.

The problem is each time this happens the rags (generally) bombard those who have witnessed it and ask repeatedly for clips. I recall something low key happening locally, a bomb threat and my friend who tweeted that she was in the vicinity was hounded by media trying to get her take on the story and whether or not she could DM them the current scenes. My friend refused to acknowledge the tweets and it was a false alarm anyway but just goes to show that filming this type of event has permeated through our culture enough that people are possibly paid for providing live action scenes of horrific incidents.

NuffSaidSam there's a good chance I'd freeze, panic, not be heroic, but I seriously doubt I'd get my phone out to record anything. In fact I know I wouldn't because I don't do it automatically for things that aren't tragic.

The police have asked for anyone with photos or video of the events to share it with them so I assume this is actually helpful to them.

Greenifer There's a big difference between sharing evidence-gaining photographs with the police only, and sharing your selfie-stick photographs of the injured on social media.

Well that's fine Tizzy, but we don't need to judge fuzzy pictures of other people with phones. We don't know if they were filming or phoning, we don't know if they already had cameras in their hands (it being a prime tourist spot) and we don't if they're so used to filming every second of their lives that instinct kicked in and they just filmed what was happening in shock.

Judging people seconds after they've experienced a horrific event is shit and it should stop.

There's a good argument for bona fide press photographers to be allowed access to take pictures in a photojournalist capacity.
I'll reserve judgement on that picture though, as I'd be speculating.

People may be in shock but they had the nous to post pics on social media and that is awful

FlappinSwazy, I didn't see that other photo, if he died it's even worse that someone photographed a dying man.

Just to clarify my comment about people standing around looking wasn't meaning they were terribly people it was more that whoever took the photo did so quickly after the man fell that those around hadn't had time to react. There will most certainly be a delay in a passerby tending to an injured person - the shock of it, processing what has happened etc. But in reality the delay isn't that long.

For those of you thinking the woman in the picture was phoning for help - it seems the photo she took looking down at the person curled in the road was used in some of the BBC coverage.

Tizzy Yep. And it was clear he was severely injured at the very least, even from the photograph.

I'm not going to criticise the people in the photo you have linked to - after all, it's not even clear they are filming, and it is the OP who is sharing on social meida, but as - initially jeffrey and then other posters have said, this was a tourist hotspot - loads of people would have been filming and taking photos anyway. It could be crucial evidence they are gathering when something like that happens. Unless they are Drs or paramedics, then it is unlikely they can add anything to the first aid, if there are already 2 or 3 people around an injured person. Quite possibly that footage is going to be more helpful than anything else they can do.
So yes, YABVU

Tbh posting to social media takes a second and is for a lot of people second nature, so I can understand how that could happen.

Selling photos or posting them hours after the event is different.

The thing is that obviously some people are cunts and some of those cunty people will have been on Westminster Bridge today. But most of the people are just regular people caught up in a horrendous incident, possibly not showing the best side of themselves.

We can't judge who is who from a fuzzy photograph or from footage taken seconds or even minutes after it happened. So perhaps we could just stop. All the people there were victims today, even the ones who didn't get physically hurt. Footage of kids on a school trip being herded passed was heartbreaking, even if they didn't see what happened it must have been terrifying to be caught up in it.

The photographs were not fuzzy earlier - they only fuzzed the faces / identities out later this afternoon. You could recognise people from those photographs.

Perhaps if you didn't see the unfuzzed photographs you don't really understand how horrific it was that they were being shared?

GardenGeek, not usually for a large crowd. The fewer people the quicker someone reacts, not sure why.

The pictures weren't so clear that you could read the minds of the people taking the photographs Flappin. You can't judge someone on a photo of them with a phone or a camera in their hand. You don't know what happened before or after that small bit of footage/picture.

I have been involved in a similar incident, one person, fatal assault, left overnight and we came across victim early morning, I would never ever ever post film on social media of that. And nor did I take film of same. It just wouldn't occur to me, cos you know, I give a shit.
I watched photos and video today that only frontline staff should ever really see. The dignity and respect of those patients was completely lost. Not to mention their families.