Frontline DIGNITY was asked to comment on Daphy Michel’s Story on The Guardian.
“Jaime Martinez, executive director and founder of Frontline Dignity, an immigrant rights and rapid response organization in Pittsburgh, received a call to the organization’s hotline from somebody near a bus shelter on the night of 1 March. The caller said she had talked to a Haitian woman who seemed to need help. Through Google Translate, she understood that the young woman didn’t speak English and believed that she was going to be picked up to go home. Martinez was out of town at that time and referred the caller to other rapid response numbers. The anonymous caller may have contacted the police, but it’s unclear whether that happened or whether there was a response.
Since then, Martinez has felt devastated that he might have been able to save Michel, although there’s no way to know whether the call was about her.
“I believe that we need to observe all our brothers and sisters as neighbors,” Martinez said. “Because there could have been other people who saw her at that bus stop and who just didn’t think of her like somebody they should help. There were plenty of buses, plenty of people that drove those buses, that saw her for many hours and they did absolutely nothing. We have a responsibility as neighbors, as humans, we need to have a radar to detect what’s going on in our community and in the spaces that we occupy.””