From Bernhard Goetz to Renee Good

"Bernhard Goetz, a 37-year-old electrical engineer living on 14th Street, got on a downtown 2 train. A couple of years earlier, he'd been mugged, and he'd subsequently gotten himself an unlicensed pistol, which he carried, concealed, that day on the subway. Four teenagers were in the same car, headed to a video arcade to jimmy open the coin boxes, which is why two of them had screwdrivers zippered up in their coat pockets. They were, witnesses said, rowdy, aggressive, intrusive."

"He didn't give them the $5. Instead Goetz pulled out his gun and shot them, including one of the four who (although the defense lawyers later argued otherwise) was sitting apart from the others and had not confronted him. Four guys, five shots, the last one fired after Goetz sneered, "You don't look so bad, here's another." None of the four was killed; Darrell Cabey, the 18-year-old he'd shot at twice, was paralyzed and mentally incapacitated."

In December 1984 Bernhard Goetz, a 37-year-old electrical engineer, boarded a downtown subway and was accosted by four teenagers, one of whom asked him for five dollars. Goetz, previously mugged and carrying an unlicensed pistol, drew the gun and shot the teenagers, firing five shots and wounding all four. One victim, Darrell Cabey, was paralyzed and mentally incapacitated. The youths were described as noisy and aggressive and were carrying screwdrivers zipped in their coats, but the tools were neither sharpened nor brandished. The incident occurred amid high New York City violent-crime rates and generated intense public scrutiny and legal debate.

Read at Curbed