HISTORY OF THE DAY
According to Oleg Loginov
December 22nd
BERNARD GOETZ
Manhattan electrician Bernard Goetz was once seriously beaten and robbed in the subway. In the 1980s, the New York subway was generally a very dangerous place and was nicknamed «limo for robbers.»
New York Subway
After this story, Bernard did not stop using the subway, but he got a gun for traveling. On December 22, 1984, Goetz was traveling on business in a subway car. He was noticed by four black guys who were one of the many teenage gangs of robbers who were then working in the subway, and nicknamed «wolf packs». They already had 14 criminal cases, and one of them, Cabey, was awaiting trial for armed robbery.
Barry Allen, Darrell Cabey,Troy Canty and James Ramseur
Getz seemed to these four cases to be «easy prey.» They surrounded him, blocking him from the other passengers with their backs. And one of them, Kenty, leaned over Getz and said, «Give me five dollars.» And to make Bernard more compliant, the guys showed him a screwdriver in the form of a cold weapon. But Getz had a bigger weapon. He pulled out a five-shot Smith & Wesson revolver and fired all the bullets at the robbers. At the same time, he missed only once. All four robbers were wounded by him. Moreover, one of them is Cabey very seriously. The bullet hit him in the spinal cord, which left him paralyzed.
This story has received a huge public response in the United States. For white Americans, Bernard has become a symbol of the human right to self-defense. For blacks, a racist who mercilessly shot four harmless black teenagers. Cabey’s lawyer even found a witness who said that a year and a half before the incident, Getz publicly stated at a public meeting: «The only way to clean up this street is to get rid of the meks and niggers (spics and niggers).» However, the version about harmless Negroes crumbled when they appeared in court. Moreover, two of them were taken there, as they were already in prison for new crimes: Allen was serving time for robbery, and Ramser for robbery and rape of an 18-year-old pregnant woman. Curiously, when Allen testified, he referred 21 times to the Fifth Amendment to the constitution, according to which no one is obliged to testify against himself. It was a unique case when a victim in a case on charges of attempted murder is afraid that his testimony may harm him.
Bernard was lucky with the jury, most of them were white, and six of the 12 were victims of street crimes. The jury acquitted Getz of the shooting, considering it as self-defense, although he was found guilty of illegally carrying a weapon. For this, he was sentenced to a year in prison, but served only 8 months.
Later, the parents of the paralyzed Darryl Kaby filed a lawsuit against Getz in a civil court, which eventually decided to recover $ 43 million from Bernie in favor of the crippled young man. However, they say that they could not really recover anything from Getz, since he declared himself bankrupt, saying that he had gone bankrupt on court costs.
Many supported Getz and considered him a hero — for the fact that he, a quiet thin man with glasses, was not afraid to defend himself in a city in which the police were increasingly considered unable to cope with crime.
*Texts from Wikipedia and other Internet resources were used.
*Translated using an electronic dictionary. The original text in Russian and much more on the criminal topic can be selected on the main page of the site — http://crimerecords.info/
