Pa. no-good Samaritans

Rape gawkers’ ‘video’

The passengers who did nothing while a homeless man raped a woman on a commuter train outside Philadelphia may have recorded the sickening attack on their cellphones instead of calling for help, authorities said.

Surveillance footage shows that Fiston Ngoy, 35, first harassed the victim for nearly 45 minutes last Wednesday aboard the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority train and touched her breast at one point, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The rape itself lasted about six minutes as other passengers looked on while holding their cellphones, but didn’t use the devices to call 911, SEPTA’s police chief said.

“We want everyone to be angry, disgusted and to join us in being resolute in keeping our system safe,” Chief Thomas Nestel III told reporters.

“We need the public to notify us when they see something that seems to be unusual.”

He added, “I can tell you that people were holding their phone up in the direction of this woman being attacked.”

It’s unclear how many other passengers were in the car of the westbound train on the Market-Frankford Line, but Upper Darby Police Superintendent

Timothy Bernhardt said the attack might have been prevented if even one of them had gotten involved.

“I’m appalled by those who did nothing to help this woman,” Bernhardt told The New York Times.

“Anybody that was on that train has to look in the mirror and ask why they didn’t intervene or why they didn’t do something.”

The do-nothing bystanders could be criminally charged if they recorded the attack, Bernhardt said. The decision would be up to prosecutors.

But Pennsylvania does not have a good Samaritan law, so it would be “very difficult to bring charges” against anyone who witnessed the attack and didn’t call 911 or offer help, Bernhardt said.

An off-duty SEPTA employee called transit cops, who arrived minutes later to interrupt the assault and arrest Ngoy, who listed a shelter in Philadelphia as his last address.

He later told investigators he struck up a conversation with the woman, claiming that the sexual encounter was consensual and that she didn’t stop his advances, the Inquirer reported.

The woman told cops that version of events was false, saying that Ngoy ignored her pleas to leave her alone, the police affidavit states.

He has been charged with rape.