Society’s Decay on Full Display: Father of Two Trapped and Killed by Boston Escalator — Bystanders Do Nothing, Echoing Irina Zaryskaya’s Horrific Fate (Video)
This is the kind of story that makes you sick to your stomach and wonder what the hell has happened to people.
Steven McCluskey, a 40-year-old father of two, was heading down an escalator at Davis Station in Somerville, Massachusetts, just before 5 a.m. on February 27. His coat got caught in the mechanism. He tried desperately to free himself, but the fabric tightened around his neck and he collapsed at the bottom.
Surveillance video shows more than a dozen people walking right past him. Some glanced over, one guy stopped for a second, then kept going. No one lifted a finger to help. An MBTA employee finally shut the escalator off more than 20 minutes later. By then it was too late.
Video:
This wasn’t a crowded rush hour where everyone was oblivious. It was early morning, and the man was clearly in distress — trapped, struggling, and dying right there in public. Yet bystanders treated him like he was invisible.
It’s impossible not to think of Irina Zaryskaya, the woman who was stabbed in a New York City subway station in 2024. People walked by, filmed on their phones, and did absolutely nothing while she bled out. Same indifference. Same chilling lack of basic human decency.
What kind of society produces this? A father of two is literally choking to death in front of strangers, and the default reaction is to keep walking. No one steps in. No one even calls out for help right away. It’s the same moral numbness we’ve seen in flash mob robberies, subway shove videos, and random street attacks where crowds just watch like it’s entertainment.
We’ve spent years being told that “thoughts and prayers” are useless and that the government or some program will fix everything. Meanwhile, the basic instinct to help a fellow human being in trouble seems to have been trained out of too many people. Everyone’s a spectator now. Everyone’s waiting for someone else to do something.
Steven McCluskey left behind two kids who will grow up without their dad because a coat got stuck in an escalator and the people around him chose to do nothing. That’s not just a tragedy — it’s a damning indictment of how far we’ve fallen.
President Trump has talked often about restoring American greatness by bringing back the values that made this country strong: personal responsibility, courage, and looking out for your neighbor. Moments like this show how badly those values have eroded in some places.
The MBTA says it’s investigating, but the real problem isn’t just broken escalators. It’s a culture where too many people have lost the willingness to get involved when it matters most.
Steven McCluskey deserved better. Every one of us does. If we can’t even stop to help a man dying in public, we’ve got a lot more than broken escalators to worry about.
Pray for his family. And pray that stories like this finally wake people up before this kind of indifference becomes the new normal.
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I’m shrewd, passionate, learned and energetic, God-fearing and patriotic. I’ve done a fine job reintroducing good old American conservatism to a new generation of Americans. I’ve earned the love and friendship of many, the hatred of some, but the respect of all.
American standards have gone off the cliff since the mid-60’s . “Hippies”, tolerated then, grew up and are still tolerated. Their children inherited their parents’ “standards.”
It’s Boston. Dumbocrats at their finest.
Look for surveillance video. Find the people who ignored his plight and punish them severely!
Massholes
Animals do more to help each other than human beings. If it were a puppy about to die, I bet everyone would have rushed in to help, especially the White people.