Bernhard Hugo Goetz Biography

In the week before Christmas 1984, news of a lone gunman who had shot four African-American teens on a New York City subway car captivated millions. Nine days later, a quiet electronics engineer, Bernhard Goetz, turned himself in to authorities. Goetz claimed that he had shot the youths in self-defense, believing they were about to rob him. The Goetz case sparked heated public debate over crime and the American criminal justice system.

Born Bernhard Hugo Goetz Jr. on November 7, 1947, Goetz grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York. His father was a strict disciplinarian of German heritage, and Goetz emerged as a bookish child. He graduated from New York University in 1969 with a degree in electrical and nuclear engineering and avoided the Vietnam draft by deliberately giving the impression that he was mentally unstable during the interview process. After college, he lived in Florida for a time, where his family had relocated, and he was married briefly.

By 1975, Goetz had launched his own business calibrating electronics equipment and lived in an apartment near Greenwich Village. In 1981, he was mugged by three African-American teens in a subway station, and he was badly beaten. Angry that one of suspects received just a short jail term, Goetz applied for a handgun permit, but it was denied. At some point he purchased a gun in Florida instead. On the afternoon of December 22, 1984, Goetz boarded a subway train and sat near the door of the relatively empty car. There were four black teens in the car as well. Accounts of what transpired next vary. Allegedly, Goetz was approached by one of them, who asked him for a match, then said, "Mister, can I have $5"" Goetz then rose and asked Troy Canty to repeat his question, but as he did so, Goetz also unzipped his jacket. Another teen had joined Canty, and made a move for his pocket. After Canty repeated his question, Goetz is said to have replied, "Sure, I've got five dollars for each of you." He pulled out a gun and began firing.

When the train stopped, the conductor entered the car where the four teens lay bleeding, and asked Goetz if he was a cop. He said no, telling the conductor, "They tried to rip me off," and fled over the subway tracks. Goetz then became the focus of a massive hunt for what the newspapers soon dubbed the "Subway Vigilante." The story seemed to strike a chord with the public. On "Wanted" posters with the police sketch of the still-at-large Goetz, people drew halos around his head. His act seemed to tap into deep collective fears about personal safety and the average citizen's sense of helplessness; anger at the police and court system for failing to keep the streets safe also found a valve in the issue. On radio call-in shows and other forums, Goetz was praised as a hero.

Meanwhile, Goetz had rented a car and fled into New England. At one point, he called a neighbor back in New York, who taped his distraught conversation. Goetz told her, "I think what I did was appropriate or reasonable....Just appropriate and reasonable under the circumstances....I saw what was going to happen. And I snapped....I turned into a monster, and that's the truth. But if most people, a lot of people, would have been in my shoes, they would have done the same thing."

Nine days after the shooting, Goetz surrendered at a police station in Concord, New Hampshire, and the revelation that Goetz was a mild-mannered engineer inspired further news stories. Those who knew Goetz professed shock that he could carry out such an act. The four youths, it was revealed, all had criminal records and two were carrying sharpened screwdrivers that day. Public opinion was still on Goetz's side, but the official reaction was more tempered. New York City Mayor Edward Koch called the act of vigilante justice and the public approval of it as forms of "animal behavior" while New York Governor Mario Cuomo pointed out that such acts were, in effect, executions without trial. Advocates of gun control pointed out that carrying a weapon and using it in self-defense creates, in the end, just another crime and another victim.

The Goetz case became a legal to-and-fro. There were conflicting accounts over what really transpired on that subway car. The details would prove whether Goetz had acted in self-defense, or overreacted. A grand jury exonerated him, agreeing that he had indeed been threatened, and thus had acted in self-defense. Then, other details about the shooting and its aftermath were made public. Allegedly, after Goetz had shot Canty, Barry Allen, James Ramseur, and Darrell Cabey, he inspected their injuries one by one. He fired a fifth bullet into Cabey after allegedly saying, "You don't look so bad, here's another." Cabey's spinal cord was severed and he became a paraplegic.

Some began to feel that Goetz, reveling in his Subway Vigilante status, was receiving too much media attention, and may have even been courting it. A new grand jury was impaneled, and this time two of the victims testified after being granted immunity from prosecution. Both asserted that they had no intention of harming Goetz but were merely panhandling for money to play video games. Goetz also asked to testify on his own behalf, but refused to sign a waiver of immunity from prosecution. He was charged with four counts each of assault, attempted murder, illegal weapons possession, and reckless endangerment. Defense attorneys battled for lesser charges, and in early 1986 the New York State Supreme Court dismissed the attempted murder and assault charges. They based their decision partly on the prosecutor's instructions to the second grand jury about the nuances of the law of self-defense and partly on suspicions that the two victims who testified had lied under oath about intending to rob Goetz-the first cop on the scene told the grand jury that a bleeding Canty had said that they had intended to rob Goetz. When Cabey was interviewed by the New York Daily News from his hospital bed, he confirmed Canty's statement. A New York Court of Appeals reinstated all four charges, however, and in June of 1987 a jury of ten whites and two blacks found him not guilty on all counts except illegal possession of a handgun. Some of the jury then asked for Goetz's autograph.