The sad thing is it sounds like except for the Chef and the Off-duty cop everyone else simply ran away. It is a horrible thing that someone can be being butchered in the middle of the road in NY and most people will simply run away. Thank God the off duty cop was there because it appears that everyone else was too worried about their own skins to do anything to help this lady.
Because people get prosecuted for that sort of thing, these days. Judges and politicians don't want the public to start getting uppity about defending themselves - best they just take their stabbings like adults and leave the intervention to their betters. ;)