Apartheid. USA 1988

June 7, 1987:

When Bernhard H Goetz (37) found himself confronted by four black teenagers on an IRT subway train three days before Christmas in 1984, he drew a gun and shot all four of them. The blacks, Barry Allen, Darryl Cabey, Troy Canty and James Ramseur - all had been arrested or convicted at

[p. 80]

least once and all were facing criminal charges when the shooting occurred. Two were carrying screwdrivers, widely - and erroneously - reported as ‘sharpened’. In a testimony ultimately thrown out by the judge in Mr Goetz's trial, Mr Ramseur, who is now imprisoned on a rape conviction, said he and his friends had been on their way to Times Square to steal money from video game machines when they were shot by Mr Goetz. What remained unclear throughout was whether they planned to rob Mr Goetz.

Thin, bespectacled Mr Goetz seemed at first an improbable aggressor. Indeed, a grand jury initially declined to indict him for attempted murder. But in his video-taped confession to the police in Concord, New Hampshire, where he surrendered, he appeared to be consumed with resentment at having been victimized and determined never to let it happen again. Denied a pistol permit after he was mugged and beaten in 1981, he bought and carried a gun anyway. So, when he was confronted by four blacks and felt threatened, he acted. Rudolf W. Giuliani, the United States Attorney in Manhattan considered and rejected filing Federal charges against Mr Goetz because he felt, Goetz ‘acted out of fear - justified or not - that he would be harmed’. Mr Giuliani concluded that there was no ‘racial motivation’ for the shooting. But if Mr Goetz was not motivated by racial animosity, was he motivated by racial fear?’ asked Don Wycliff in the Times. ‘Was his fear inspired, at least in part, by the fact that the four young men who confronted him were black? And if so, were his fear-inspired actions unreasonable, given the facts of urban life?’ Wycliff further asked.^108.

108. The New York Times, from a report by Don Wycliff