Bernhard Goetz, a white electronics engineer, was beaten and robbed by a group of young black men in a
New York subway station in
1981. The criminals were never brought to trial, and Goetz was embittered and disillusioned. He acquired (without a permit) a
.38, which gave him a sense of bravado and, determined to walk whenever and wherever he wanted, prompted him to chase off muggers in
Central Park and in the subway.
In December
1984, four black men,
Barry Allen,
Darrell Cabey,
Troy Canty, and
James Ramseur, approached Goetz because “he looked like easy bait” and “asked” him for five dollars. They were unarmed except for three screwdrivers. Goetz shot all four of them. To one of the men, Cabey, he said "You don't look too bad, here's another,” and shot him again. Cabey was paralyzed and brain-damaged from the shot.
The incident caused a nationwide sensation, and opinion was sharply divided. Many saw Goetz as a hero merely defending himself from rampant crime (all four had been arrested or convicted of previous crimes), while others viewed him as a racist who gunned down four unarmed men. For his part, Goetz was unrepentant. "I was trying to get as many of them as I could," he said. Goetz was acquitted of attempted murder charges, but he did serve 8 ½ months in jail on a weapons charge.
A decade later, Cabey sued Goetz for “
emotional distress”. The would be
mugger was awarded $43 million by a jury in
1996, but he’ll only see a small fraction of that amount, since Goetz filed for bankruptcy.