On December 22, 1984, 37-year-old electronics engineer Bernhard Goetz defended himself from a group of would-be robbers on a New York City subway car.
Forty years later, another New York straphanger claimed self-defense to quash a murder charge in another Big Apple subway vigilante case.
In May 2023, Daniel Penny, a 26-year-old Marine Corps veteran who was studying architecture at a university in New York, put Jordan Neely, 30, in a headlock to stop a riot that scared passengers and included death threats. I applied it. And he will go to prison for the rest of his life.
Jurors found Penny not guilty of manslaughter earlier this month after prosecutors asked the judge to throw out the most serious charge.
Daniel Penny found not guilty in subway chokehold trial
Bernhard Goetz, who shot and killed four young men as they were about to be robbed on a crowded subway, has been acquitted of all attempted murder charges. He was only convicted of one of the 13 charges, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon. (Bettman via Getty Images)
Both the Goetz and Penny trials were highly politicized and scrutinized due to the race of the subjects. Both Goetz and Penny are white. The four people Neely and Goetz shot were black. Legal scholars have spent years debating whether Mr. Gaetz would have shot and killed a white teenager under similar circumstances. Penny's defense has repeatedly accused prosecutors of trying to unfairly inject racial overtones into a trial that did not involve hate crime charges.
Both incidents reflect a deep-seated national feeling that crime is spiraling out of control in New York City. Goetz said he had been robbed multiple times in the past, which is why he carried a handgun. After a series of subway incidents in which mentally ill homeless people attacked passengers, Penny choked Neely and told police, “These guys are pushing people in front of trains.''
Violent crime in New York City declined dramatically from the late 1990s to the 2000s, but some crime, especially robbery, is on the rise again.
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Daniel Penny returns to court after a break during his trial in Manhattan Criminal Court, New York City, December 3, 2024. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Mr. Goetz was acquitted of attempted murder, but spent eight and a half months in prison for possessing the handgun he used for self-defense without a license.
The incident involved four teens: Darrell Cavey, James Ramser, Troy Canty, and Barry Allen. According to court records, the first two suspects were armed with sharpened screwdrivers, which they claimed were not weapons but tools used to break into arcade game coin boxes.
They boarded the No. 2 train bound for Manhattan in the Bronx and surrounded Goetz as he boarded the train and sat alone at Manhattan's 14th Street Station.
Goetz had an unlicensed .38 caliber pistol with five rounds loaded in his belt.
Bernhard Goetz leaves the courtroom. (Rick Mayman/Sigma via Getty Images)
The teens approached Goetz, and Canty, without showing any weapons, told them, “Give me five dollars.”
Rather than be robbed, Goetz pulled out a gun and fired four shots, hitting Canty in the chest and Allen in the back. Another bullet passed through Ramseur's arm and into his side. The fourth shot missed Cavy. Goetz waited a moment and then fired one final shot at Cavey, severing his spinal cord and leaving him paralyzed.
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Subway car No. 2 immediately after the shooting of Bernhard Goetz at Chambers Street Station in Manhattan on December 22, 1984. (Carmine D'Onofrio/New York Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
“I said, 'Looks like I'm OK, I've got one more shot,'” Goetz later told detectives. “If I had had a little more self-control…I would have put the barrel of the gun against his forehead and fired.”
He added that if he had carried more bullets, he would have continued shooting.
The conductor stopped the train and radioed the police. Goetz jumped off the train and fled on foot.
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Screenshot of bystander video showing Jordan Neely being strangled on the New York City subway. (Luces de Nueva York/Juan Alberto Vazquez, via Storyful)
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The incident caused a media uproar, and Goetz surrendered to police in Concord, New Hampshire, nine days later. He told them he had illegally possessed the pistol since 1981, when he was “injured” in a previous robbery. He also said on several occasions he chased off other would-be robbers by brandishing his weapon without firing a shot.
Because of the previous attack, he said he could tell the teens on the train were trying to rob him by their actions and looks. Before the case went to trial, at least two of the teens reportedly admitted to attempting the robbery, but the court deemed these statements to be hearsay.
Goetz did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.
