Apartheid. USA 1988

June 17, 1987:

Bernhard H Goetz (39) the electrical engineer who gunned down four black teenagers on a Manhattan subway train in December 1984 was acquitted by a jury of attempted murder, a front page headline said in the New York Times. The verdict, after a tumultuous seven-week trial in State Supreme Court cleared Mr Goetz of 11 of the 12 charges in the indictment against him, including 10 major felonies. It also represented a complete rejection of the argument by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office that Mr Goetz had acted irrationally in believing that he needed to use deadly force against the youths, one of whom remains paralyzed. ‘This has been the most difficult case of our time, Acting Justice Stephen G Crane told the packed court-room after the verdict had been delivered by the jury foreman. ‘There will be criticism and there will be support,’ Justice Crane told the jurors. ‘But whatever is thought about your verdict, you have the confidence of the court.’^117.

117. The New York Times, front-page by Kirk Johnson