The NY Subway Vigilante

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

**Josh** (0:11)
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too. We're pretty sure.
And this is Stuff You Should Know.

**Chuck** (0:19)
That's right. 80s history, New York City history edition, yeah?

**Josh** (0:25)
Oh, it's definitely, I mean, not just like New York City history, this is one of the pivotal moments in the history of New York.

**Chuck** (0:32)
Yeah, that's right, because everyone, we are talking about somebody who, as far as pop culture goes, was on the cover of Time Magazine. Somebody who has been in pop songs by Billy Joel, of course, Lou Reed, none other than the Beastie Boys, has been a Trivial Pursuit Answer, has been a question on Jeopardy, has been mentioned in an episode of Seinfeld even. Of course, who are we talking about, Josh?

**Josh** (1:00)
Wow. Well, hold on, I can top your Time Magazine. He was also in Mad Magazine.

**Chuck** (1:06)
Okay, also in Mad Magazine. This must have been some entertainer or some revered cultural icon, yeah?

**Josh** (1:14)
Sure, in a roundabout way, but not really. I think you're being coy or fey.

**Chuck** (1:19)
That's right, we're talking about Bernhard Goetz, the subway vigilante who shot four teenagers on a subway train in New York City in 1984 when I was 13 years old. I remember this very vividly. It was a very big deal.

**Josh** (1:35)
Yeah, and we should probably come out and say these were unarmed teenagers too. And then I saw, so there's a book called Five Bullets by a legal correspondent named Elliot...

**Chuck** (1:50)
Ness? Smith?

**Josh** (1:54)
Actually, it's Elliot Smith hyphen Ness. Good guess.

**Chuck** (1:59)
Easton?

**Josh** (2:00)
That's Sheena Easton you're thinking of. Thank you for helping me tap dance here.

**Chuck** (2:04)
Elliot Easton of the Cars.

**Josh** (2:06)
Well, anyway, I'll find his last name, but his first name is Elliot. He wrote a book called Five Bullets and it's about this. And he was, I saw him being interviewed and he was like, you know, were these kids? And he's like, yeah, that's, I think he said, that's a fair question. He said they were teens, they were 18 or 19, but they were also-

**Chuck** (2:24)
Fully grown adults by then.

**Josh** (2:25)
Exactly. They were young men for sure. So to call them kids, which a lot of people did was incorrect, but to also say that they were armed, which a lot of people said was incorrect as well.

**Chuck** (2:36)
Yeah, unless you count a screwdriver.

**Josh** (2:39)
Yes, but was it even them being armed?

**Chuck** (2:42)
I know.

**Josh** (2:43)
Yeah.

**Chuck** (2:43)
Well, we'll get to all that. So I guess we should sort of just say quickly the story, maybe?

**Josh** (2:51)
Yeah. And by the way, I really liked your intro.

**Chuck** (2:54)
Oh, thanks. We'll get into the details of it, but the overall story is that on the New York City subway train, on the 2 train in December of 1984, a guy named Bernhard Goetz, 37 years old. He's an electrical engineer, still lives, still lives in the very same apartment, which is kind of crazy.

**Josh** (3:11)
In the West Village, right?

**Chuck** (3:14)
I'm not even sure where it is.

**Josh** (3:15)
I'm pretty sure it is.

**Chuck** (3:16)
Okay. Well, I mean, I might have bumped into him one day. You never know. But yeah, he still lives in the same place, which is a little crazy because I've never heard him say one thing about New York City that he likes. All I've ever heard him, and I've listened to a lot of interviews, all I've ever heard him do is complain about everything about New York.

**Josh** (3:31)
Yeah. He's apparently still complaining about how New York was in the 80s.

**Chuck** (3:36)
Yeah, maybe so. But anyway, he was 37 at the time, took a seat on the New York City subway, I think what was it, the 2 Train. Four 18 and 19-year-olds got on, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, Daryl Cabe, and James Ramsure got on and were being like, I've been on trains back in the day, it doesn't happen a whole lot anymore where teenagers or even older teenagers get on, and they start screwing around with people. They start being disruptive, maybe even veiledly, veiledly, veiledly?
Veiledly threatening, and that's what was going on, and one of them, I believe it was Canty, approached Bernhard Goetz and either said, give me five bucks or can I have five bucks? Bernhard Goetz pulled a gun out of his windbreaker and shot each of them one by one, hit two of them in the back, and then fired a second bullet at Darryl Kaby, who was, this is where it gets a little confusing as to how exactly it played out and we'll get to all those details, but nobody was killed, he was the one that was injured the most. He ended up paralyzed and brain damaged because the bullet entered his spine.