An elderly man lost his life Thursday when a deranged man with a history of offenses allegedly shoved him down a flight of stairs in Manhattan, New York City.
The New York Post identified the deceased as 76-year-old Ross Falzone, a retired teacher. Falzone was about to descend the stairs into a subway station around 3:30 p.m. that day when another man was captured on CCTV coming up behind him, violently pushing him.
Falzone was later pronounced dead after WABC said he suffered a fractured spine, a fractured rib, and a traumatic brain injury.
The suspect is 32-year-old Rhamell Burke, a one-time Broadway dancer. He is being held at Rikers Island without bail.
Footage of the attack was later posted to social media platform X showing how senseless and unprovoked the moment was that led to Falzone’s death.
The story becomes worse when learning that Falzone wasn’t the only person terrorized by Burke, who should have already been behind bars.
In a separate report from the New York Post, on April 2, a woman and her friend had an altercation with Burke when he approached her, allegedly grabbing her by the hair and kicking her friend in the back.
“He comes up and he kicks my friend in the back, and basically pushes him through the transition of the cars,” she said.
“My friend freaks out, runs away, and then he grabs me by the head and pushes my head down, trying to like maybe throw me on the ground or something. But I didn’t, I resisted as much as I could. I didn’t fall, and then I immediately opened up the car and then ran towards my friend.”
After leaving the subway, she noticed Burke in pursuit, but police were thankfully nearby. “We started running a little bit, but then thank God the cops were right there because, I mean, we kept thinking about, imagine that there were no cops, we would have had to literally run for our lives. They immediately arrested him. It was shut down really fast by the cops and we respected that.”
That should have been enough to hold Burke, but she chose not to aid prosecutors.
What was her reasoning? He was a black man. “Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail, but, you know, at some point, if you are a criminal, you’re a criminal, and he was scary, he was a scary guy.”
In other words, supposed systemic issues with the incarceration rates of black men kept her from helping to stop his reign of terror.
Burke was even taken to a hospital the day of Falzone’s death for “acting erratically” only to be released.
“I regret it 100% and I actually feel really bad that a man lost his life,” the woman said after Thursday.
Thomas Sowell, in his 2007 work “A Conflict of Visions,” makes the distinction between the constrained and unconstrained visions.
The constrained vision sees humanity as flawed; regardless of the institutions and their functions, humanity will err as history has shown. We must take experience and history into consideration when deciding the best course.
The unconstrained vision sees humanity as good, even perfectible, only held back by institutions that need change. Our traditions are built upon dated worldviews. We should not heed the experience of generations before ours, but let our reasoning in the current day dictate what level of efficacy those institutions have achieved.
In other words, abstract theories about systemic oppression, so-called “equity,” and one’s standing as part of a group can replace any legal precedent in doling out justice.
The unconstrained vision put Burke back on the streets. Our legal history says unhinged criminals belong behind bars, but novel theories about race and oppression say he’s a product of the system.
For as much as the left cares about the collective, this woman wasn’t caring much about the rest of her community when she decided to do nothing about Burke.
Now she will be left regretting her decision for the rest of her life.
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