The “subway vigilante”
Episode two became known as the “subway vigilante”. The story of Bernhard Goetz, a white man who rose to notoriety in 1984 after he shot and wounded four black men in a New York City subway car, comes to foreshadow many other incidents of racist violence whose perpetrators claimed a “vigilante”-like self-defense. Goetz claimed it was not a racial attack and that the man had approached him and asked for money. He said he presumed they were going to mug him and that he acted out of a fear of being attacked.
Goetz, as Trial by Media shows, immediately gained support throughout the country, and was dubbed the “subway vigilante”. Eventually, Goetz was acquitted on charges of attempted murder and assault, and only found guilty for carrying an unlicensed firearm.
