A Crime of Self-Defense: Bernhard Goetz and the Law on Trial

by George P. Fletcher

Book Overview

The popular press dubbed him "the subway vigilante" Bernhard Goetz, who on December 22, 1984, shot four black youths on a New York subway train when one of them asked for five dollars. Goetz claimed to have fired in self-defense, out of fear that the young men were about to rob him.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226253341
• ISBN13: 9780226253343
• Release Date: June 1990
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

More than the law was on trial back then

For days after four punks tried to intimidate a fellow passenger on a New York subway train into giving them money, only to discover that they had an excitable minor-league Rambo on their hands, my western New York hometown buzzed with all sorts of condemnation of this man. This was of course influenced by the liberal media calling Goetz "The Subway Vigilante". Never mind that the term "vigilante" really applies to lynch mob situations where a posse not sanctioned by the law goes out and murders someone they consider guilty of a crime. It does not mean the actual would-be crime victim who's already in the crosshairs and as far as he knows has only seconds to live if he doesn't act p.d.q. But my neighbors and acquaintances were brainwashed (we all were to some extent) into thinking that street punks were themselves victims of a hostile and uncaring society. They were only kids and had the standard adolescent schoolboy machismo, so they were only fooling around. Plus, Goetz has a very German name, so everyone branded him with a mental swastika. I think it was at that point that society tried and convicted Goetz in their own hearts as a cold-blooded slayer of four young kids. Never mind that none of us had been on that subway train ourselves, urban mass transit being a hunting ground for human predators the world over. The legacy of those days, when public opinion was beginning to run towards cutting "the disadvantaged" as much slack as possible, has over two sorry decades come to its fruition. The only times I ever rode a New York subway were well before those day, and I wouldn't send my worst enemy down into one today. I tend to stay out of hard-core urban areas period, sticking to the 'burbs and rural areas, where law and order hasn't yet completely collapsed.