The Picture that Shames Italy...

[2luvmy]

I am not sure what to think. It seems as if the police took the other children away for questioning and then left the bodies there.

I am not sure what the beachgoers were expected to do. I know for me personally, I wouldn't be able to continue on having a great day at the beach after something like that. However, onlookers covered them up and then what??

 

[tapu]

Is it possible that people didnt realize these girls were deceased? I mean if you are going to the beach and all you see as a couple of people covered up with their feet sticking out are you going to think they are dead or just trying to avoid a sunburn?
Call me stupid here but if i went to the beach and didnt see anything making me think they were dead (crime scene tape, police etc)I really would just think they were sleeping with the blanket or towel over them
I see that at the beach here....maybe I need to start poking people to make sure

A few years ago, I "frolicked" all day on Black's Beach in La Jolla, CA, never realizing that the "sunbather" over from me was a guy who had fallen from the cliff above and died.

I think, though, that people knew these girls were dead. But I don't think the picture tells a thing about how they felt about it. You can't look at someone in a photo and say, oh, that's apathy, not empathy. I mean, you really can't.

I would definitely stay there if I were there already until the poor girls had been removed from the beach. And I'd sit. And yes, I'd even let my kids go in the water, because they're just kids. It wouldn't mean I was a monster.

 

[LinetteH]

We lived in Italy a few years ago and I recall seeing Roma almost every where we went. I remember my father telling me to be careful around them since they were famous for stealing purses etc...

With that said I cannot imagine staying at the beach after I watched two girls die. I certainly would not let my 10 and 7 year old swim and play etc... We would have packed up and left. I find it strange the police did not remove the dead girls when they left, to me that is so bizarre! Ther eis no well in the world police in the states would ignore a dead body like it was simply trash!

As far as the government in Italy goes all I can say it is inept and corrupt. While we were living there they actually were trying to tax dead people. Their hopes were that family members would just pay the dead person's taxes. This is a governmental system that truly has no clue!

 

[asher1979]

I, too, find this story just awful and cannot imagine that people really sat there.

But I wonder if the beachgoers really understood what was happening. I studied in Florence and Rome while in college. The Roma women were noted for pretending to throw their babies at you. The purpose was to get you to drop your bags in a rush to catch the baby. Thus, they could then steal the bags you dropped. As you picked up what you thought was a baby you would discover it was a sack of flour wrapped in a blanket.

The men would steal puppies from backyards and use them to get tourist sympathy. Once the puppies got bigger they would throw them into traffic and go steal another small puppy. I was giving money to a Roma and his puppy near the home of my host family and my host family filled me in on what was really going on.

So, not being sure of what the situation at that beach really was... I wonder if the bystanders thought it was another Roma scam. Didn't it say they did attempt to rescue them but were only able to save 2? I wonder if they didn't realize what was going on until it was too late.

Just my thoughts...

 

[Texana]

I don't understand why the bodies weren't removed by authorities, period.

I would feel devastated if that were my child. Just left there, uncovered, on the sand for hours.

Surely there are other procedures and far better ones!

 

[sillygoose]

I agree with a lot of what some of you have said. How do we know that the beachgoers in the picture weren't just watching out for the bodies since the authorities didn't move them away? I probably would stay to make sure that the bodies weren't disturbed by sickos, animals, or rising tide. The couple was just sitting there, after all. It's not like they were playing volleyball over the bodies or anything.

 

[Tricia]

Silly Goose,

I was just about to post the same thought. Let's take it a step further...what if the cops asked them to watch over the bodies until someone came to pick them up.

This picture is tragic because it shows two dead children. There is nothing "shameful" about the people sitting there. Not at all.

After reading up on the Roma's...my God. No wonder people are fed up with them. As a culture they appear to do nothing but steal and cause problems.

I would assume there are a good many people out in the world who are Roma's but do not particpate in the horrible behaviors of the other Roma's. That group, the Roma's who are decent people, those are the ones I feel sorry for along with the children of the Romas. Can you imagine the abuse that must go on in those communities?

 

[Texana]

I don't really have a problem with the other beachgoers, the fault lies with the authorities who didn't remove the bodies OR give them proper covering (according to the article, it was other people on the beach who covered them up with beach towels.)

The bodies should have been covered officially and someone in a civil servant position left there until they were removed, which hopefully would be fairly quickly.