Some Things Never Change: Bernard Goetz Complains That, in 1984, NYC Officials Cared More about Muggers Than Their Victims

Revised at 10:46 p.m., on Thursday, June 30, 2011.
Last revised at 10:52 p.m., on Thursday, June 30, 2011.

Goetz: I was shocked and offended that the system in New York went to a great extent, went to a lot of trouble—spent a lot of resources trying to catch someone who had shot a bunch of muggers. Everyone who lived in the city at the time knows that if you were a crime victim, the legal system here would basically spend no resources on you.

GRACE: The crime rate in New York City at that time was horrific.

GOETZ: Yes.

GRACE: Especially on the trains.

GOETZ: It was bad on the streets, too. The—the city at the time, basically, addressed crime by pretending it didn't exist. The political system here in New York addressed crime by pretending it didn't exist. They didn't know how to arrest –…

GOETZ: Yes, I was offended by, yes, exactly, that the government was doing nothing, basically, to protect the public.

[Excerpt from a December 17, 2004 interview of Bernard Goetz by Nancy Grace as guest host on The Larry King Show. Complete transcript here.

Note that the four black thugs whom Goetz shot all eventually publicly admitted that they were trying to rob him at the time. But of course, that was immediately obvious to any honest person. When four young guys surround you and “ask” for money, that’s a robbery.

Since then-DA Robert Morgenthau’s assistant district attorneys prepared each of the would-be muggers to testify in court against Goetz that [the would-be mugger] had not planned on mugging Goetz, there is also no doubt in my mind that, as Goetz maintains, Morgenthau’s ADAs suborned perjury.

Another thing Morgenthau’s staff did, in order to rig the case against Goetz was to seek to poison the jury pool by defaming Goetz, via the media, by lying and saying that he had shot one of the would-be robbers a second time. Thus, the real criminals of the piece were DA Robert Morgenthau and his henchmen, and the four would-be robbers whom Goetz shot.

The main differences between then and now are that the NYPD claims to aggressively fight violent crime and manufactures fictional stats to back up its claim, and police have gone so far over to the dark side that if you’re a white, heterosexual man attacked by blacks, the cops will not merely refuse to help you, but more often than not will arrest you and/or tell you, employing tortured legal logic and outright lies about the law worthy of a tenured professor of critical race theory, that your black attacker was the real victim.

The following passage is an excerpt from my VDARE report, “Sotomayor Supporter Robert Morgenthau and His Regime of Racialized ‘Justice’ In Manhattan.”


The Bernard Goetz Case

From 1984-1987, Morgenthau pursued a vindictive prosecution against Bernard Goetz. Goetz was a Jew working in electronics who, at Christmastime, 1984, had defended himself against four 18 and 19-year-old black men attempting to rob him at midday in a subway car. Goetz, who had previously been mugged three times, and been brutally beaten the last time, shot each of the would-be robbers once.

While seeking to put Goetz away for 30 years for attempted murder and illegal gun possession, Morgenthau treated the would-be muggers, all hardened thugs who had criminal records and were wanted on outstanding warrants, as if they were crime victims. He used the media to spread lies, claiming that Goetz was a “racist” who had been looking for trouble, and who had shot one of the muggers a second time. The media called Goetz “the subway vigilante.”

Grand juries almost always follow prosecutors’ lead. But the first grand jury refused to indict Goetz for attempted murder, as Morgenthau sought, and only indicted him for illegal possession of a firearm. So Morgenthau empaneled a second grand jury, which indicted Goetz for attempted murder.

In 1987, the jury in Goetz’ criminal case acquitted him of the charge of attempted murder, but convicted him of illegal possession of an unlicensed handgun, and sentenced him to one year in prison. He served eight months. In 1996, a Bronx jury>—notorious for their racial bias—awarded one of the would-be muggers a judgment of $43 million, in a civil suit against Goetz. All of the four men would later admit that they had intended on mugging Goetz.]

GRACE: Welcome back. I'm Nancy Grace in for Larry King. Nearly 20 years ago, one man's actions spurred either worship or fear throughout the country. Bernard Goetz became known as the subway vigilante. And with us tonight, he tells his story. Bernard, after you took out the weapon and you fired on four -- as you call them -- thugs that you believed were robbing you, the reaction of the other train goers -- what did they say? Did they try to apprehend you? Were they afraid of you?

GOETZ: Basically, everyone was fleeing the subway car. There were two women who fainted who I wound up talking to later and perhaps with good reason. One bullet missed, hit the wall of the subway car and broke into two pieces. That came -- that came back. One piece fell on the floor. The other piece came back and either hit me or her but it was moving at a very slow speed. There was another woman who was between the two guys on my left, and so the speed shooting -- all she saw was boom, boom. There was one guy on one side of her, the other guy on the other side of her drop down. She fainted. She was out.

GRACE: As you were walking away with police sirens going and hundreds of police mobbing the subway, what was in your mind as you were walking away, calmly?

GOETZ: I wasn't calmly walking away. It was just to get away. I went to Sixth Avenue or Church Street and flagged down a cab and took a cab home.

GRACE: And became of that wind windbreaker and that gun?

GOETZ: I don't know what happened to the windbreaker or the gun. That evening, I drove up to Vermont and I broke the gun into a few pieces and buried it in the woods. I almost died that night. I got lost in the woods and I almost froze to death. I only had a light jacket on.

GRACE: Did you see the papers and the news accounts of the shooting?

GOETZ: Yes, I was shocked and offended that the system in New York went to a great extent, went to a lot of trouble -- spent a lot of resources trying to catch someone who had shot a bunch of muggers. Everyone who lived in the city at the time knows that if you were a crime victim, the legal system here would basically spend no resources on you.

GRACE: The crime rate in New York city at that time was horrific.

GOETZ: Yes.

GRACE: Especially on the trains.

GOETZ: It was bad on the streets, too. The -- the city at the time, basically, addressed crime by pretending it didn't exist. The political system here in New York addressed crime by pretending it didn't exist. They didn't know how to arrest –
GRACE: So you were watching all the news accounts and reading the papers. But what disturbed you was --

GOETZ: I was offended by --

GRACE: The outpouring of resources.

GOETZ: Yes, I was offended by, yes, exactly, that the government was doing nothing, basically, to protect the public.