Cracked / YouTube
This clip from Cracked is currently the #3 trending video on YouTube and it’s amassed over half a million views in the past 15 or so hours since it was uploaded. What’s causing this video to go viral isn’t some trick in the YouTube algorithm or the 1.8 million subscribers on the Cracked YT channel. This video’s going viral because it’s an absolutely insane story.
The narrator in this video is a man named Joe Lozito, and in 2011 on his morning commute in NYC, he was attacked by a person terrorizing the city on a stabbing spree. Joe hadn’t kept up on the news that day so he didn’t realize who was in front of him or what was happening until it was too late. Here’s Joe’s story of getting stabbed on the subway, taking down his attacker while bleeding out, and doing all of this while two NYPD cops stood behind a door and watched all of this unfold because they didn’t have a legal obligation to step in according to precedent, which is wild.
For what it’s worth, I want to say that I very much support our men in blue and don’t see this video as a slight against them. The cops were just following the rule of law at the time.
Just like anyone who’s lived in NYC, I’ve encountered some genuinely crazy ass people who made me question my safety. Usually, you just wait until the next stop and move subway carts while trying to avoid eye contact because catching eyes somehow always seems to be the trigger. In hindsight, had I known that the NYPD doesn’t actually have a legal obligation to protect me if I was being attacked I think I would’ve been a little less cavalier with my safety. I feel like this is something that everyone in America should know about, that ‘a special duty’ doesn’t exist. I guess that’s why Cracked made this video?
The worst part about all of this is Joe’s medical insurance/the hospital not even testing him for AIDS/other diseases after he was stabbed with a knife used to stab multiple other individuals. That’s fucked up.
If you want to read more about Joe Lozito’s story you can check out this article from 2013 in the New York Post.