It has taken a lot of concerted effort on the part of the grievance industry, but the bonds of civil society are finally fraying to the breaking point.  In broad daylight at 10 AM Thursday, 19 year old nursing student Jessica Hughes was attacked and beaten by a pair of muggers whose race the media do not care to mention, as other passengers on the train did not lift a finger to help her. 

Chicago TV Station WLS interviewed her:

"If you were seeing someone else getting abused, wouldn't you want to step in?" Hughes said.

I look at Ms. Hughes’s face and see a heartbroken young woman, probably an idealist judging by her chosen profession that aims at helping others. As her question indicates, she cannot comprehend that others did not care about her plight, for she automatically would come to the aid of another under trying circumstances.

Hughes said that perhaps more painful than the beating she took at the hands of two robbers while riding the "L", is that fellow passengers who saw the attack, did nothing to stop it.

"I was yelling for help. There were two other guys on the train and they did nothing. They just watched as he beat me," she said. (snip)

The freshman nursing major said that after most of the passengers in her rail car got off at the UIC-Halsted stop, one man moved to the seat in front of her. As the train left the station, Hughes said she got a bad feeling. That's when the 19-year-old said the man tried to take her iPhone.

"He started pushing me and then he pushed me to the floor and when he pushed me to the floor, he started hitting on me constantly. His body was on top of me holding me down so I couldn't fight back," she said.

But Hughes didn't let go of her phone, even when her attacker bit her hand. She says the woman her attacker was with then punched her in the face before both fled to another rail car without the iPhone or anything else. Hughes said she finally got some help at the Kedzie/Homan stop.

When the media decline to provide a description of assailants, it is a pretty good indication that they are a protected minority. The attack took place at a place on the Blue Line where the neighborhood starts to get sketchy, as a Chicagoan who used to commute on the same train put it to me.

At a minimum, we know that a sense of community is no longer enough to assure us that we have some backup if a predator decides to attack us. In an era where practically everyone carries a smartphone, salable on the black market, we are all vulnerable.  And there are those who make excuses for criminals based on some sense of “justice” that sees inequality, other than in pro sports, as justification for violence and expropriation by force or by government action.

Update. Chicago police have released surveillance camera photos of the alleged suspects, of no particular race (via DNAinfo):