On December 22, 1984, Bernhard Goetz () shot four black teenagers on a New York City Subway train in Manhattan after they allegedly tried to rob him. All four victims survived, though one, Darrell Cabey, was paralyzed and suffered brain damage as a result of his injuries.
Incident
In the early afternoon of December 22, 1984, four males in their late teens 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 victims were en route to steal from video arcade machines 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. Those involved and witnesses disagree what happened next.
Troy Canty asked Goetz how he was, and shortly thereafter stood up, approached Goetz, and made some overture for money: According to Canty he alone approached Goetz, and said, "Can I have $5?" (~$15 in 2026). According to Goetz, Canty was joined by another of the teens and Canty said, "Give me five dollars" in a "normal tone" of voice with a smile on his face.
In 1986, the NY Court of Appeals concluded from grand jury evidence that Goetz pulled a handgun and fired four shots at the four men, initially striking three of them. After initially opening fire, Goetz 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, missing. Cabey's spine was severed, resulting in brain damage and partial paralysis. 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 reported that three black teenagers had smashed him into a plate-glass door and thrown him to the ground, injuring his chest and knee. Friedman's account was excluded from the criminal jury trial, but in a subsequent civil action, Goetz admitted to having used both epithets at a neighborhood meeting.
Victims
Each of the four youths shot by Goetz was facing a trial or hearing on criminal charges at the time of the incident. Ten weeks prior to being shot, Cabey was arrested on charges that he held up three men with a shotgun in the Bronx, and he was released on $2,000 bail. Cabey failed to appear at his next court date, resulting in an additional arrest warrant.
Goetz's flight, surrender, and interrogation
After the shooting, Goetz took a cab back to his 14th Street home before renting a car and driving north to Bennington, Vermont; he then burned the distinctive blue jacket he had been wearing and scattered the pieces of his gun in the woods. Goetz stayed at various hotels in New England for several days. On December 29, Goetz called his neighbor, Myra Friedman, who told him that police had come by his apartment looking for him and had left notes asking to be contacted as soon as possible.
Goetz told police that he felt that he was being robbed and was at risk of violence, and he explained he had been both mugged once before and nearly mugged several times: 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." Goetz also said that, after firing four shots, he moved to Cabey and said, "You seem to be doing all right, here's another," before shooting at him again, missing. He denied any premeditation for the shooting, something on which the press had speculated. 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.
Indictments
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. On January 25, the grand jury refused to indict Goetz on the more serious charges, voting indictments only for unlawful 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. Morgenthau granted immunity to Troy Canty and James Ramseur, which he had previously declined to do, allowing them to testify before the second grand jury. In January 1986, Judge Crane granted a motion by Goetz to dismiss these new indictments. Judge Crane dismissed the charges on two grounds: First, he held that the prosecutor had erred when instructing the grand jury that, for Goetz's actions to be protected by New York's self-defense statute, they would have to be objectively reasonable.