On December 22, 1984, Bernhard Goetz () shot four young Black men on a New York City Subway train in Manhattan after they allegedly tried to rob him. All four teenagers survived, though one, Darrell Cabey, was paralyzed and suffered brain damage as a result of his injuries. Goetz fled to Bennington, Vermont, before surrendering to police nine days after the shooting. He was charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment, and several firearms offenses. A jury subsequently found Goetz guilty of one count of carrying an unlicensed firearm and acquitted him of the remaining charges. For the firearm offense, he served eight months of a one-year sentence. In 1996, Cabey obtained a $43 million civil judgment against Goetz, equivalent to $ million today.
Goetz was dubbed the "Subway Vigilante" by the New York press. To his supporters, he came to symbolize frustrations with the high crime rates of the 1980s. But questions of what impact race—and racism—had on Goetz, the public reaction, and the criminal verdict were hotly contested. The incident sparked a nationwide debate on crime in major U.S. cities, the legal limits of self-defense, and the extent to which the citizenry could rely on the police to secure their safety. The incident has been cited as leading to successful National Rifle Association campaigns to loosen restrictions for concealed carrying of firearms.
Incident
In the early afternoon of December 22, 1984, four young men from the Bronx—19-year-olds Barry Allen, Troy Canty, and Darrell Cabey, and 18-year-old James Ramseur—boarded a downtown 2 train (a Broadway–Seventh Avenue express). Canty would later testify that the teenagers were en route to steal from a video arcade machine in Manhattan. 37-year-old Bernhard Goetz boarded the train at the 14th Street station in Manhattan. At the time, about fifteen to twenty other passengers were in a R22 subway car, the seventh car of the ten-car train.
Troy Canty approached Goetz, asked Goetz how he was, and made some overture for money: According to Canty, he said, "Can I have $5?" According to Goetz, Canty, who Goetz said was joined by another one of the teens, said, "Give me five dollars" in a "normal tone" of voice. While those involved and witnesses disagree as to precisely what happened next, Goetz subsequently pulled a handgun and fired four shots at the four youths, wounding all but Cabey. Goetz stated that he then bent down to Cabey, who was cowering on the ground, and said, "You don't look so bad. Here's another," and shot once again. Cabey's spine was severed, resulting in brain damage and partial paralysis.
Shortly after the shooting, the train conductor entered the car and loudly exclaimed, "What's going on?" He approached Goetz and asked what happened. Goetz pointed to the north end of the car and then told him, "I don't know ... they tried to rob me and I shot them." The conductor then went to the passengers to check if they were injured before returning to Goetz and asked if he was a police officer, which Goetz denied, and he then asked Goetz for the gun, which Goetz refused to turn over.
Shooter
Bernhard Hugo Goetz was born November 7, 1947, in the Kew Gardens, Queens neighborhood to German immigrants. His father was Lutheran and his mother was Jewish before converting to Lutheranism. While growing up, Goetz lived with his parents and three older siblings in Upstate New York, where his father ran a dairy farm and a bookbinding business. Goetz attended boarding school in Switzerland before returning to the United States to obtain a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and nuclear engineering from New York University. Goetz then moved to Orlando, Florida, where his family had relocated, and worked at his father's residential development business. After a divorce, Goetz moved back to New York City, where he started an electronics business out of his Greenwich Village apartment.
According to Goetz, in early 1981, he was the victim of a robbery at the Canal Street subway station. Goetz reported that three Black teenagers had smashed him into a plate-glass door and threw him to the ground, injuring his chest and knee. Goetz was involved in a struggle with one of the teenagers until police arrived; that individual accused Goetz of assaulting him. To his frustration, Goetz was detained for six hours, while the person he accused was released in two and a half hours. Goetz subsequently applied for a permit to carry a concealed handgun, on the basis of routinely carrying valuable equipment and large sums of cash, but his application was denied for insufficient need. He bought the 5-shot .38-caliber revolver he would ultimately use in the shooting during a trip to Florida.