Bernard Hugo Goetz, publicly known as
Bernhard Goetz, also known as
Bernie
Goetz, is an American best known for shooting four young
men whom he said were intent on mugging him, resulting in his
conviction for illegal possession of a firearm.
Goetz came to
symbolize New
York
' frustrations with the high crime rates of the mid 1980s. The incident
occurred on the
Seventh
Avenue 2
express subway train in
Manhattan in late December, 1984. It sparked a nationwide debate on
vigilantism, the perceptions of race and
crime in major cities, and the legal limits of
self-defense.
Goetz fired an unlicensed
revolver five
times, seriously wounding three of the would-be muggers and
rendering the fourth a
paraplegic. The
initially unknown shooter, dubbed the "Subway Vigilante" by the New
York press, was both exalted and vilified in the media and in
public opinion.
Goetz surrendered to police nine days later and was eventually
charged with attempted
murder,
assault,
reckless
endangerment, and several
gun crimes. A
Manhattan jury found him
not guilty of
all charges except an illegal firearms possession count, for which
he served two-thirds of a one-year sentence.
Goetz and others have
cited his actions as a contributing factor to the groundswell
movement against urban crime and disorder, and successful National Rifle
Association
campaigns to loosen restrictions on the concealed carrying of firearms.
Early life
Goetz was
born in Queens
, and grew up
in upstate New York, where his
German immigrant father ran a dairy
farm. He spent his high-school years at a boarding school in Switzerland
, returning to the United States to earn a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and nuclear
engineering from New York University
. At the time of the shooting he was
self-employed, running an electronics repair business out of his
Greenwich
Village
apartment.
The incident
In the
early afternoon of Saturday, December 22, 1984, four African-American men from The Bronx
— Barry Allen, 19; Troy Canty, 19; James Ramseur,
18; and Darrell Cabey, 19 — boarded a downtown No. 2
express train apparently on
a mission to steal money from
video
arcade machines in Manhattan. When the train arrived at the
14th Street station in
Manhattan, 15 to 20 other passengers remained with them in subway
car 7657, the seventh car of the ten-car train.
Encounter
At the 14th Street station, Goetz entered the car through the
rearmost door, crossed the aisle and took a seat on the long bench
across from the door. Canty was across the aisle from him, lying on
the long bench just to the right of the door. Allen was seated to
Canty's left, on the short seat on the other side of the door.
Ramseur and Cabey were seated across from the door and to Goetz's
right, on the short seat by the conductor's cab. According to
Goetz's statement to the police, approximately ten seconds later
Canty asked him, "How are you?" Goetz responded, "Fine". According
to Goetz, the four men gave signals to each other, and shortly
thereafter Canty and Barry Allen rose from their seats and moved
over to the left of Goetz, blocking Goetz off from the other
passengers in the car. Canty then said to Goetz, "Give me five
dollars". Canty testified at the criminal trial that he was
panhandling, although eyewitness
testimony generally agreed that the four men were aggressive and
threatening. Goetz told police that he thought from the smile on
Canty's face that they wanted to "play with me", and he decided on
a "pattern of fire" that he would use to shoot them. Goetz,
pretending not to hear, asked Canty, "What did you say?" Canty
repeated, "Give me five dollars".
Shooting
After the second solicitation for money, Goetz stood up, and from
beneath his blue windbreaker drew a
.38
Special five-shot
Smith &
Wesson revolver. Goetz, who had prior
firearms and target shooting experience, fired five shots, striking
each of the four men. All four survived, though Cabey was
permanently
paralyzed and suffered brain
damage as a result of a bullet that severed his
spinal cord.
In a telephone call made to a neighbor before he surrendered, and
taped without his knowledge, Goetz described his
physiological state at the time:
- "Myra, in a situation like this, your mind, you're in a combat
situation. Your mind is functioning. You're not thinking in a
normal way. Your memory isn't even working normally. You are so
hyped up. Your vision actually changes. Your field of view changes.
Your capabilities change. What you are capable of changes. You are
under adrenaline, a drug called adrenaline. And you respond very
quickly, and you think very quickly. That's all. [...] You think!
You think, you analyze, and you act. And in any situation, you just
have to think more quickly than your opposition. That's all. You
know. Speed is very important."
Sequence of shots
Sources differ in reporting the sequence of shots fired, and
whether Cabey was shot once or twice. Following are three versions
from significant or reliable sources describing the sequence of
shots:
Sequence of shots with Cabey shot on the fourth and fifth
shots
Prior to the criminal trial the media reported that Cabey had been
shot on the fourth shot and then again on the fifth shot, with
Goetz saying, "You don't look too bad, here's another." or "You
seem all right, here's another." This sequence of shots was
discredited at the criminal trial when it was revealed that Cabey
was shot once in the left side, however some media still reported
this sequence long after the criminal trial.
Sequence of shots with Cabey shot on the fifth shot
"Speed is everything", Goetz said in a videotaped statement made
after he surrendered nine days later. He told police that while
still seated, he planned a "pattern of fire" from left to right. He
then stood, stepped clear of Canty, drew his gun, turned back to
Canty and fired four shots, one at each man, then fired a fifth
shot. At the civil trial years later he said, "I was trying to get
as many of them as I could." Other sources repeated Goetz's
statements to NH police as to the sequence of shots: Canty was shot
first, then Allen, then Ramseur, then Cabey. In the related
proceeding
People v.
Goetz, the New York Court
of Appeals
summarized the incident:
According to his statements to police, Goetz checked the first two
men to make sure that they had been "taken care of", then, seeing
that the fourth man was now sitting down and seemed unhurt, said
"You seem to be all right, here's another" and fired at him
again.That the fourth man, Cabey, was shot only once was a fact not
made known to Goetz or his attorneys until shortly before the
trial. One bullet missed, fragmenting on the steel cab wall behind
Cabey. (The missed shot would also be the basis of a charge of
reckless endangerment of other
passengers.)
Cabey and the "here's another" issue
Cabey ended up slumped in the short seat in the corner of the car
next to the conductor's cab, a lateral bullet wound in the rear of
his left side and his spinal cord severed. Whether Cabey was struck
by the fourth shot or by the fifth was critical to Goetz's claim of
self defense; this issue was fiercely contested at trial. Medical
testimony said that such an injury would render the lower half of
Cabey's body instantly useless.According to the prosecution, the
fourth shot missed; then Goetz shot a seated Cabey at point-blank
range with the fifth.The defense theory of how Cabey ended up in
the seat was that he was standing when hit by the fourth shot, then
collapsed into the seat due to the lurching and swaying of the
train; with the fifth shot being the shot that missed.
A summary of Goetz's statements to the police had become public two
months after the incident, drawing intense media coverage. Probably
most damaging to Goetz's public support and to his claim of acting
in self-defense was his statement that he had said "You don't look
so bad, here's another" before firing at Cabey a second time. Media
concentration on the summary's more damning portions created a
public mindset that a wounded Cabey was shot a second time, with
the second shot taken in a premeditated and deliberate way — an
impression that stood uncorrected until the criminal trial two
years later. Eleven years later, at least one city newspaper was
still reporting as fact that Cabey was shot twice.
At trial, one witness testified that Goetz approached to within
"two to three feet" of a seated Cabey, then demonstrated how Goetz
stood directly in front of Cabey and fired downward, a description
that matched Goetz's published statements. Eight other independent
witnesses testified that all shots came in "rapid succession"; one
of these said the firing lasted "about a second". None of the eight
heard a pause before the final shot, and none saw Goetz standing in
front of Cabey.
Whether Goetz actually said the words "You don't look so bad,
here's another" aloud, or only thought them, is still a matter of
dispute. He has subsequently denied on several occasions making the
statement.In his closing summation to the jury, prosecutor Gregory
Waples conceded:
Sequence of shots with Cabey shot on the fourth shot
At The Bronx civil trial Goetz testified the first shot was Canty,
Allen second, the third shot missed, Cabey fourth, and Ramseur
fifth. The following similar shooting sequence is from the Bio
& letters page of Bernie Goetz's website:
"I decided to shoot as many as I could as quickly as I could. I did
a fast draw, and shot with one hand (my right), pulling the trigger
prior to the gun being aligned on the targets. All actual shots
plus my draw time occurred easily within 1.6 seconds or less. This
is not as difficult to do as some might think, and occasionally I
give a description of the technique along with a
re-enactment.
The first shot hit Canty in the center of the chest. After the
first shot my vision changed and I lost my sense of hearing. The
second shot hit lightning fast Barry Allen in the upper rear
shoulder as he was ducking (later the bullet was removed from his
arm). The third shot hit the subway wall just in front of Cabey;
the fourth shot hit Cabey in the left side (severing his spinal
cord and rendering him paraplegic). The fifth shot hit Ramseur's
arm on the way into his left side. I immediately looked at the
first two to make sure they were "taken care of", and then
attempted to shoot Cabey again in the stomach, but the gun was
empty. I thought Cabey was shot twice after reading a media account
no shots missed; I had lost count of the shots and while under
adrenaline I didn't even hear the shots or feel the kick of the
gun. "You don't look too bad, here's another" is a phrase I came up
with later when trying to explain the shooting while I was under
the impression that Cabey was shot twice. Cabey, who was briefly
standing prior to the shooting, was sitting on the subway bench
during all attempted shots. The others were standing. Shortly after
the shooting my vision and hearing returned to normal."
Flight and surrender
The terrified passengers ran to the other end and out of the car,
leaving behind the two women who had been closest to the shooting,
fallen or knocked down by the exodus, and immobilized by fear.
Goetz talked to them to make sure they were not injured, then was
approached by the
conductor of the train. Goetz
stated "They tried to rob me." The conductor asked whether Goetz
was a police officer, receiving the reply "No." Some time after a
brief conversation in which he refused to hand over the gun, Goetz
jumped to the tracks and ran south through the tunnel to the
Chambers Street station, where he exited the system.
He went
home to gather some belongings, then rented a car and drove north
to Bennington,
Vermont
, where he burned his blue jacket and dismantled the
gun, scattering the pieces in the woods north of town. He
drove around New England for several days, registering at motels
under various names and paying in cash. On December 26, an
anonymous hotline caller told New York City police that Goetz
matched the gunman's description, had a gun, and had been mugged
four years earlier. In a December 29 telephone call to a neighbor,
Goetz learned that police had come by his apartment looking for
him, and had left notes asking to be contacted as soon as
possible.
Goetz returned to New York on December 30, turned in the car,
picked up some clothing and business papers at his apartment,
rented another car and drove back to New England.
Shortly after noon the
next day, he walked into the Concord, New Hampshire
police headquarters and told the officer on duty,
"I am the person they are seeking in New York."
Statements to police
Once the officer realized that Goetz was a genuine suspect, Goetz
was given a
Miranda warning and
waived his right to have an attorney present. After an interview
that lasted over an hour, a Concord detective asked Goetz to
consent to making an
audiotaped statement. Goetz
agreed, and a rambling two-hour statement was recorded.That
evening, New York City detectives and an
assistant district attorney arrived in
Concord, and Goetz submitted to a two-hour
videotaped interview.Both interviews were
eventually played back for the grand juries, the criminal trial,
and a civil trial years later.When the audiotape was first played
in open court, Goetz was described by
The New York Times as "confused and
emotional, alternately horrified by and defensive about his
actions, and obsessed with justifying them."
In his statements, Goetz described a past violent
mugging in which he was injured and the only
assailant arrested went unpunished. He called New York City
"lawless" and expressed contempt for its justice system, calling it
a "joke", a "sham", and "a disgrace". Goetz said that when the four
men he shot surrounded him on the train, he feared being "beaten to
a pulp" as well as being robbed. He denied any premeditation for
the shooting, something that had been speculated on by the
press.
Asked what his intentions were when he drew his revolver, Goetz
replied, "my intention was to murder them, to hurt them, to make
them suffer as much as possible."Later in the tape, Goetz said,"If
I had more bullets, I would have shot 'em all again and again. My
problem was I ran out of bullets". He added, "I was gonna, I was
gonna gouge one of the guy's [Canty's] eyes out with my keys
afterwards", but said he stopped when he saw the fear in his
eyes.At the criminal trial, Goetz's defense attorneys,
Barry Slotnick and
Mark Baker, argued that this and
other extreme statements by Goetz were the product of emotion and
an overactive imagination.
Goetz was brought back to Manhattan on January 3, 1985 and
arraigned on four charges of attempted murder,
with
bail set at $50,000.
He was held in
protective custody at the
Rikers
Island
prison hospital.Refusing offers of bail
assistance from the public and from his family, he posted bail with
his own funds and was released on bond January 8.
Background
This incident occurred during the
1980s, a
time of unprecedented high crime rates in New York City.
By
mid-decade, the city had a reported crime rate over 70% higher than
the rest of the U.S.
In
1984, there were 2 homicides, 18 violent crimes, and 65 property
thefts reported per 10,000 people. On average, 38 crimes were
reported in the
subway system
each day; the subway became a symbol of the city's inability to
control crime.In a
survey of New York
City residents taken the month after the shootings, more than half
of those surveyed said crime was the worst thing about living in
the city; about a quarter said they or a family member had been a
victim of crime in the last year; and two-thirds said they would be
willing to pay for
private security
for their building or block.
While transporting electronic equipment in 1981, Goetz was attacked
in the
Canal Street subway
station by three youths who tried to steal the equipment and his
sheepskin jacket. They smashed him into a plate-glass door and
threw him to the ground, causing chest and knee injuries. Goetz
assisted an off-duty officer in arresting one of them, but was
angered when his attacker spent less time in the police station
than he did, then was further angered when his attacker was charged
only with
criminal mischief, for
ripping the jacket. Goetz applied for a
permit to carry a
handgun, on the basis of routinely carrying valuable equipment
and large sums of cash. His application was denied for insufficient
need, as are most such applications in New York City. Goetz bought
a five-shot,
alloy J-frame
Smith and Wesson "Airweight"
revolver with a shrouded hammer on his next trip to
visit family in Florida. He began carrying it regularly and had
brandished it twice to frighten away would-be robbers before using
it to shoot the four men who confronted him on the subway.
At the time of the incident all four men had criminal records, with
a total of fourteen criminal
bench
warrants, although only Cabey had been charged with a
felony, armed robbery. All of them were either 18 or
19, and had reached the legal
age of
majority.
Early reports
Because of the loudness of the shots inside the confined space of
the subway car, there were initial witness reports that suggested
the gun involved was a
.357 Magnum
revolver. Goetz alluded to these reports in a December 2004
interview on the
Opie and
Anthony radio show, saying that the first shot he fired
that afternoon had been unusually loud in part because it was the
first shot fired by the small-frame
.38
caliber revolver after the factory tests, which "cleaned the
barrel".
After the incident, rumors spread that Goetz had been threatened
with sharpened
screwdrivers. This rumor
was published as fact by some newspapers including the
New York
Times; however, neither Goetz nor the men made any such claim.
During his subsequent statement to the police Goetz expressed a
belief that none of the young men had been armed. Paramedics and
police did find a total of three screwdrivers on two of the men;
when Canty testified at Goetz's criminal trial he said they were to
be used to break into video arcade change boxes and not as
weapons.
Public reaction
"The subway vigilante", as Goetz was labeled by New York City
media, was front-page news for months, partly owing to the
repressed passions the incident unleashed in New York and other
cities. Public opinion tended to fall into one of three camps:
Those in the first camp tended to believe Goetz's version of the
incident, that he was aggressively accosted and surrounded by the
four men and feared he was about to be beaten and robbed. Those in
the second camp tended to believe the version told by the four men,
that they were merely panhandling to get some money to play video
games. A third camp believed that Goetz had indeed been threatened,
but viewed the shooting as an unjustified overreaction.
Supporters
Supporters viewed the soft-spoken Goetz as a hero for standing up
to his attackers and defending himself in an environment where the
police were increasingly viewed as ineffective in combating
crime.
The
Guardian Angels, a volunteer
patrol group of mostly black and Hispanic teenagers, collected
thousands of dollars from subway riders toward a legal defense fund
for Goetz. The
Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE), a
civil
rights organization, supported Goetz. Its director
Roy Innis offered to raise defense money, saying
Goetz was "the avenger for all of us", and calling for a volunteer
force of armed civilians to patrol the streets. The prior criminal
convictions of the four men (and the published accounts of such)
prevented them from gaining sympathy from many people. A special
hotline set up by police to seek information
was swamped by calls supporting the shooter and calling him a hero.
Harvard Professor of Government
James
Q. Wilson explained the broad
sentiment by saying, "It may simply indicate that there are no more
liberals on the crime and law-and-order issue in New York, because
they've all been mugged".
Detractors
Some believed the version of the incident as told by the four men,
that they were merely panhandling with neither intimidation nor
threats of violence. This view was later substantially discredited
when Cabey admitted in a newspaper interview that his friends had
indeed intended to rob Goetz, who looked like "easy bait".
Some saw the incident as racial (Goetz was white, the four men were
black), and the jury verdict as a blow to race relations.
Benjamin Hooks, director of the
NAACP, said "The jury verdict was inexcusable. [...]
It was proven — according to his own statements — that Goetz did
the shooting and went far beyond the realm of self-defense. There
was no provocation for what he did". Representative
Floyd Flake agreed, saying "I think that if a
black had shot four whites, the cry for the death penalty would
have been almost automatic". Contradicting Flake's statement,
Time magazine pointed out
that a year before the Goetz trial a New York City grand jury
refused to indict Austin Weeks, a 29-year-old black man who shot
and killed one of two white youths who accosted him on the
subway.
C. Vernon Mason, a candidate for district
attorney and co-counsel for Cabey, said Goetz's actions were
racist, as did the Rev.
Al Sharpton.
Goetz's racial language about criminal activity on 14th Street,
made at a community meeting 18 months before the shooting, "The
only way we're going to clean up this street is to get rid of the
spics and niggers" was offered as evidence of racial motivation for
the shooting. Black political and religious leaders twice called
for a Federal
civil rights
investigation.An investigation by the office of
U.S. Attorney
Rudolph Giuliani determined that
the impetus for the shooting had been fear, not race.
Others
Between these two extreme views, some believed that Goetz was
indeed threatened with violence, but questioned whether the drastic
nature of his actions qualified as true self-defense. People in
this camp thought that Goetz callously overreacted when he opened
fire without warning on not only one, but all four of the men who
confronted him. In the
Opie and Anthony Show radio
interview, Goetz alluded to this camp and recalled how a telephone
caller to another talk show suggested to him that at the moment of
the incident, Goetz "should have been thinking of Cabey's mother".
Goetz said that at the moment he was cornered by what witnesses
testified were four hostile men, he was first and foremost
concerned for his own safety and survival and that he was not
thinking of the men's relatives.
First and second grand juries
Manhattan District
Attorney Robert Morgenthau asked a
grand
jury to
indict Goetz on four counts
of attempted murder, four of
assault, four
of
reckless endangerment, and one of
criminal possession of a weapon.Because they would have to be
granted
immunity from
prosecution, neither Goetz nor the four men he shot were called
to testify. The 23 jurors heard witnesses, considered the police
report of the shooting, and studied
transcripts and tapes of the sometimes
conflicting statements Goetz made to police in New Hampshire.The
jury refused to indict Goetz on the more serious charges, voting
indictments only for gun possession – one count of criminal
possession of a weapon in the third degree, for carrying in public
the loaded unlicensed gun used in the subway shooting; and two
counts of possession in the fourth degree, for keeping two other
unlicensed handguns in his home. The case was assigned to Judge
Stephen Crane.
The shootings initially drew wide support from a public fearful and
frustrated with rising crime rates and the state of the criminal
justice system. A month after the grand jury's decision, a report
summarizing statements Goetz made to police became public,
indicating that he had fired one shot at each of the four men, then
checked their condition, and, seeing no blood on the fourth, said
"You don't look so bad, here's another" and fired again.The media
now wrote of a change in the public mood and demanded that Goetz be
tried on the attempted murder and assault charges while suggesting
approaches that would allow Morgenthau to convene a new grand jury.
Public figures including New York Governor
Mario Cuomo raised questions based on the police
summary. Senator
Arlen Specter of
Pennsylvania called for a special prosecutor.Stating that he had a
new witness, Morgenthau obtained Judge Crane's authorization to
convene a second grand jury, which heard testimony by Canty and
Ramseur and indicted Goetz on charges of attempted murder, assault,
reckless endangerment and weapons possession.
Judge Crane granted a motion by Goetz to dismiss the new
indictments, based on alleged errors in the prosecutor's
instructions to the jury regarding Goetz's defense of
justification for the use of
deadly force. A second factor in the
dismissal was the judge's opinion that testimony by Canty and
Ramseur "strongly appeared" to have been
perjury, based on later public statements by Canty
and Ramseur that they had intended to rob Goetz, and on a newspaper
interview where Cabey stated that the other members of the group
planned to frighten and rob Goetz because he "looked like easy
bait".The judge allowed the weapons possession and reckless
endangerment charges to stand.
The
New York Court
of Appeals, in People
v. Goetz,
reversed Judge Crane's dismissal, affirming the prosecutor's charge
to the grand jury that a defendant's
subjective
belief that he is in imminent danger does not by itself justify the
use of deadly force. The court agreed with the prosecutor that an
objective
belief, one that would be shared by a hypothetical
reasonable person, is also required. The
appeals court further held that Judge Crane's opinion that the
testimony of Canty and Ramseur was perjurious was speculative and
inappropriate. All charges were reinstated, and the case was sent
to trial.
Criminal trial
The Goetz trial was a significant news event. Goetz confessed to
the shooting but argued that his actions fell within the New York
self-defense statute. Under Section 35.15, "A person may not use
deadly physical force upon another person... unless... He
reasonably believes that such other person is committing or
attempting to commit [one of certain enumerated predicate offenses,
including robbery]."
Goetz was
tried before a mainly white Manhattan
jury, six of whom had been victims of street
crime. He was acquitted of the attempted murder and
first-degree assault charges and convicted of criminal possession
of a weapon in the third degree – carrying a loaded, unlicensed
weapon in a public place. He was sentenced to six months in jail,
one year's psychiatric treatment, five years' probation, 200 hours
community service, and a fine of $5,000. He appealed, and the
appellate court affirmed the conviction and ordered a resentencing
for a period of one year in jail without probation. The order of
the appellate court was affirmed because the trial court had not
erred in instructing the jury that, if it found the People had
proved each of the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt,
it "must" find the defendant guilty. This was not a
directed verdict. Goetz served eight
months.
Civil trial
Cabey's lawyers
William Kunstler
and
Ron Kuby filed a
civil suit against Goetz the month following the
shootings.
The case was tried eleven years later in
The
Bronx, with race the dominant theme. During jury
selection, Kuby asked the mostly non-white prospective jurors
whether they had ever been discriminated against. Goetz admitted to
previous use of racial language and to smoking marijuana laced with
angel dust in the 1980s.Kuby portrayed
Goetz as a racist aggressor; Goetz's defense was that when
surrounded he reacted in fear of being again robbed and beaten.
Newspaper columnist
Jimmy Breslin
testified that in a 1985 interview, Cabey denied his involvement in
an attempted robbery, but said that Canty, Allen, and Ramseur
intended to rob Goetz.
The jury of four blacks and two Hispanics found that Goetz had
acted
recklessly and had
deliberately
inflicted emotional
distress on Cabey. Jurors interviewed after the trial said that
Goetz's decision to fire at Cabey a second time was a key factor in
their decision. The jury awarded Cabey $43 million – $18 million
for
pain and suffering and $25
million in
punitive damages.
Goetz subsequently filed for
bankruptcy,
saying that legal expenses had left him almost penniless. A judge
of the
United States
Bankruptcy Court ruled that the $43 million jury award could
not be dismissed by the bankruptcy. Asked in 2004 whether he was
making payments on the judgment, Goetz responded "I don't think
I've paid a penny on that", and referred any questions on the
subject to his attorney.
Legacy
The New York State legal standard for the self defense
justification use of deadly force shifted after rulings in the
case. New York jurors are now told to consider a defendant's
background and to consider whether a hypothetical
reasonable person would feel imperiled if
that reasonable person were the defendant.
After reaching an all-time peak in 1990,
crime in New York City dropped
dramatically through the rest of the 1990s. As of 2006, New York
had statistically become one of the safest large cities in the
U.S., with its crime rate being ranked 194th of the 210 American
cities with populations over 100,000.
New York City crime rates in the years 2000-2005 were comparable
to those of the early 1960s.
Goetz and others have interpreted the significance of his actions
in the subway incident as a contributing factor precipitating the
groundswell movement against crime in subsequent years. While that
claim is impossible to verify, Goetz achieved celebrity as a
popular
cultural symbol of a public
disgusted with urban crime and disorder.
Goetz is frequently referenced in rap music, including by
Big L on
Da Graveyard and Wu-Tang
Clan member
GZA on
Clan in da Front among many
others. Bill Stephney of
Def Jam
Records mentioned Goetz's hero-status in an explanation of
Public Enemy's namesake: "We're
all public enemies.
Howard Beach.
Bernhard Goetz.
Michael Stewart. The Black
man is definitely the public enemy."
Activities since the incident
In March 1985, soon after being released from the hospital for the
treatment of his gunshot wound, James Ramseur falsely reported to
police that two men hired by Goetz had kidnapped and attempted to
kill him. In May of that year, Ramseur held the gun while an
associate raped,
sodomized and robbed a
pregnant eighteen-year-old woman on the rooftop of The Bronx
building where he lived, and in 1986 was sentenced to 8⅓ to 25
years in prison. Barry Allen committed two robberies after the
shooting, one of them a chain snatching in the elevator of the
building where he lived. The second arrest brought him a sentence
of up to four years for
probation
violation.
As of 2005, Goetz was again living in New York City and had run for
both
Mayor (
in 2001) and
Public Advocate (2005). Goetz
has stated that while he did not expect to be elected, he did hope
to bring attention to issues in the public interest. He is also an
advocate for
vegetarianism and the
serving of vegetarian lunches in the New York City public school
system. Goetz is also involved in the
squirrel community of New York. He installs
squirrel houses, feeds squirrels and performs first aid. He
occasionally gives media interviews about the 1984 subway incident
that suddenly brought his private life into the public eye. He
sells and services
electronic
test equipment through his company Vigilante Electronics. In
the 2002 film
Every Move You Make, Goetz played a
criminalist who teaches a female stalking victim how to use a
concealed-carry weapon. In 2004,
twenty years after the incident, Goetz was interviewed by Nancy
Grace on
Larry King Live,
where he stated his actions were good for New York City and forced
the city to address crime.
References
- Photo - exterior of car 7657 taken in 1971, before the
graffiti epidemic
- Photo - interior of similar model car, an R-17,
New York Transit Museum - Goetz car
was an R-22 with fiberglass seating
- Severin Mevissen: Was macht eigentlich ... Bernhard Goetz?
Stern 5/2008, p. 154.
- BernieGoetz.net - See: Bio & letters page
- Image: Smith & Wesson Model 642
revolver
- Text of Civil Complaint against Goetz Lectric Law
Library
Additional sources
- Subway Gunman: A Juror's Account of the Bernhard Goetz
Trial (ISBN 0-945167-08-3).
- A Crime of Self-Defense : Bernhard Goetz and the Law on
Trial (ISBN 0-226-25334-1). (book
review)
- The trial of Bernhard Goetz (ASIN B0006DAN94).
- People Vs. Goetz: The Summations and the Charges
to the Jury (ISBN 0-89941-657-8).
- BookRags (interesting old summary of
case)
External links
- Goetz car was an R-22 with fiberglass
seating
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