THE VIDEO IS HARD TO WATCH. A MIDDLE-AGED man is bent backward over a bus-stop bench, eyes closed, head brushing the ground, with a cell phone in his outstretched hand. It rings, but the man doesn’t move. A few feet away, dangerously close to the road, a woman lies facedown on the sidewalk, her legs buckled under her. She tries to get up but can’t make it, and collapses back down in a heap.
The pair are in what’s known as the medical district of Memphis, near a major academic hospital, but people walk by without a second glance. Others take out their phones and start recording. “Look, they on the good gas, man,” says one of the people who streamed the scene to Facebook Live. Another starts an impromptu…