He tried to stop a sexual assault. Strangers are now mourning his death

A impromptu memorial sits near the sidewalk in Arlington, Virginia, where Patricio Salazar tried to stop a sexual assault and was beaten so badly that he died. Photo / The Washington Post

I attended the funeral of a man I didn't know.

In the pew in front of me sat two women who also hadn't met him. And in front them, in rows packed with people, there were others who knew nothing about Patricio Salazar's love of sports or books or his ability to talk to anyone he met.

They knew only how he had died: trying to help someone.

If a measure of our worth is who mourns us when we're gone, it is the rarest among us who are missed by not only friends and family members but also strangers, people we touched without even knowing it.

And in recent days it has become clear that Salazar touched many with his last, selfless act.

Many of us would like to think that if we heard a scream, we would turn towards it and not ignore it, and that, if tested, we would have the courage to stand up for someone who couldn't stand up for themselves.

The reality is that not all of us would. Salazar did.

He witnessed a man physically and sexually assaulting a woman in Arlington, Virginia, on October 18 and tried to help, police said. That man then beat Salazar so severely, police said, that he was pronounced dead at a hospital.

So many hate-fuelled events have recently vied for our attention and what little emotional reserves we have left, that it's understandable if you missed - or even dismissed - news stories that told of Salazar's death.

But this is why his loss has resonated in his Virginia community and why people beyond it should also know his name: any one of us could have been in Salazar's position that night, forced to decide whether to do something or nothing. And in a way, each of us faces that question at this very moment. The type of violence he witnessed, and tried to stop, was not an anomaly. It occurs every day.

An American is sexually assaulted every 98 seconds and that victim is a child every eight minutes, according to RAINN, America's largest anti-sexual violence organisation.

Think about that. In the time it takes to warm up a cup of coffee, someone's life has been irreparably changed. Cook a quick breakfast alongside it and a child's life has been damaged.

If you believe that sexual violence does not affect you, you are lucky - and naive. Sexual violence happens on Metros, in parking lots and in office buildings. It happens among strangers and among spouses. It has likely already happened to someone you care about.

Man killed while trying to stop sexual assault remembered as warm and unassuming https://t.co/P98jzzOf9f pic.twitter.com/3dHGwpUapk

— Arlington Now (@ARLnowDOTcom) October 25, 2018

Three days after Salazar died, a woman was forced into an alley in northwest Washington and sexually assaulted.

A day after that, a 16-year-old girl was raped in a parking lot stairwell in Montgomery County, Maryland, by a man she had talked to on a bus and who had followed her off it.

The woman Salazar tried to help was on a footpath on a busy street when her boyfriend began violently attacking her, according to court records.

Bradley Flood was inside his home nearby when he heard the woman's screams.

The 27-year-old walked across the street and saw the woman on the ground, naked and curled into a ball. He also saw the man who allegedly assaulted her and noticed blood on his knuckles.

"You call the cops and it will be the end of you," Flood recalled the man telling him. Flood said he backed up toward the street and flagged down drivers, telling them to call emergency services. He then went back to check on the woman and found that the man had fled.

That's when he noticed Salazar on the footpath, bleeding. He said Salazar was able to talk and asked him to wipe the blood from his face. Flood took off his sweatshirt to do so.

"You're a hero," Flood told him several times. "You saved her."

Good Samaritan is dead after stopping a violent sex attack on a woman behind food trucks on George Mason Dr. @ArlingtonVaPD: suspect Michael Nash then fatally beat Good Samaritan Patricio Salazar; 2nd witness intervenes, helps both victims. Suspect flees, caught hrs later @wusa9 pic.twitter.com/ezyNZgtEZA

— Peggy Fox (@PeggyTV) October 19, 2018

Of everything he did that night, Flood said he is most proud that he thought to tell Salazar that.

"That was an unwinnable situation for him and he did it anyway because he's a hero," Flood said. "What would have happened if Patricio wasn't there?"

Police later arrested Michael Nash, 27, and charged him with abduction with intent to defile, forcible sodomy and animate object sexual penetration. Authorities said more charges are expected.

Flood said he has no idea how long the woman was screaming and how many people heard her and did nothing. He went to the police station to give a witness statement and said a detective told him it's not uncommon for people to ignore it.

"It's like a car alarm - people tune it out," he recalled the detective saying.

We have to stop doing that - tuning out the people around us. Of course, not everyone should confront a violent assailant. That is decision each person has to make for themselves in the moment, weighing the risks of intervening against the regrets of not.

But we can all take actions that don't require heroic measures.

We can start by doing a better job of watching out for one another. We can look up from our phones now and then and make eye contact with the people around us. When that 16-year-old stepped off that bus in Montgomery County, did anyone around her, even for a brief moment, notice that man was following her and wonder why?

It's true that it is sometimes not obvious when someone needs help. But sometimes, it is.

Salazar's family has set up a GoFundMe "to support victims of sexual violence and to help put an end to all forms of gender-based violence." The funds, according to the page, will be donated to two certified organisations, one in Virginia and one in La Paz, Bolivia, where Salazar is from.

As of today, the page had raised more than US$17,000 toward a US$20,000 goal.

It had also drawn numerous comments from people who knew Salazar and missed their friend and from people who had never met him but mourned his death as a collective loss.