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Request for comments:
Here are some news stories, some editorials and columnist opera.
Perhaps there are local opinions.
n155  0249  05 Jan 85
BC-FAIN-COLUMN(COX) Adv06
(FOR RELEASE SUN. JAN. 6)
COMMENTARY: The Death Wish Vigilante
By JIM FAIN
c. 1985 Cox News Service
    NEW YORK - Topic A here is neither summit talks nor Super Bowl. It's
the Death Wish Vigilante, and, unless you've ridden the subways with
some regularity, you don't get a vote.
    Bernhard Hugo Goetz, mild-mannered electronics engineer, lit up the
Walter Mitty in every strap-hanger when he pulled a pistol Dec. 22
and shot four young blacks who hassled him on a subway.
    There was nothing racial in the reaction. Blacks who suffer more
from crime than do whites were extravagant in their praise of the
37-year-old white who decided not to take it anymore. The street joke
is that Mayor Ed Koch wants Goetz in jail so he won't have to face
him as opponent in the upcoming election.
    Most of the hero worship flourished before Goetz drove to New
Hampshire and gave himself up. As the facts emerge, they will cloud
the certitudes on everyone's lips. Facts have a way of screwing up
firm convictions.
    Platitudes about vigilanteism don't go down well either, however,
because the law's track record is lousy. Subways are a daily
reminder. Goetz had been mugged on the same line in 1981. He fought
back and was hospitalized. One story says he later saw one of his
tormentors mug another man.
    Mugging is not an unusual event here. If not a universal experience,
it is surely a familiar one. Nearly every New Yorker has either been
mugged or has a friend or relative who has.
    The subway is a crucible because its passengers are hostage. Not
during rush hour. The violence then is impersonal body-jamming,
harming only dignity. But, at other times, you enter with a darting
glance to inventory who might cause trouble. Punks cruising cars can
come any time. Passengers seldom look up.
    Avoidance techniques consist mainly of staying out of
menacing-looking situations and keeping the head down. How many
people also carry weapons, I have no idea, but the one guy who used
one roused the worship of millions. After all, we grew up admiring
lonesome strangers in white hats who dispatched robbers from movie
stagecoaches.
    It's just as well that a police investigation will show us now all
sides of what happened Dec. 22. Such matters seldom are as clear-cut
as our fantasies make them.
    New York is an urban cauldron where you see next year's problems
today. Police lost a measure of control of subways years ago, as they
lost control of sections of the city.
    Most citizens can avoid the neighborhoods but can't function without
using the subways, so they ride and grumble. It's not as bad as it
sounds. A 110-pound, street-wise woman I know has ridden for years
and never seen an incident. A tough took a swipe at her purse once,
but her mama had taught her how to hold it.
    Still any incident is too many, and there are hundreds every year
amongst the millions who ride. That's unacceptable, but vigilantdism
is a nutty answer - on grounds of personal safety, not legal
ideology. Equity for muggers is far from one of my priorities, but
please don't put me in a car, God, where some frustrated citizen is
spraying lead at fellow passengers, however worthy of killing a
handful of them may be.
    If we get mad enough as a society about what's happening, we'll band
together and stop it with beefed-up policing, mutual citizen support
and public indignation. Lone rangers may be magnificent on film but
they're more lethal than bad guys in a crowd where people bleed real
blood.
    (Distributed by The New York Times News Service)
    
nyt-01-05-85 0546est
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a044  0322  05 Jan 85
PM-Subway Shooting,0379
Goetz Refuses Bail Offer From Family, Supporter; Will Do It 'His Way'
    NEW YORK (AP) - A man accused of shooting four youths on a subway
train has refused bail offers from his family and the hundreds of
people who pledged up to the entire $50,000, but authorities decried
the public support.
    ''I would not glorify this person under any circumstances,'' police
Commissioner Benjamin Ward said of 37-year-old Bernhard Goetz, who is
charged with the Dec. 22 shootings.
    Goetz, of Manhattan, remained in a special section of Rikers Island
city jail today. His attorney, Frank Brenner, said Friday that Goetz
was ''in the process of making arrangements to get himself bailed
out.
    ''Just when he'll be bailed out I'm not prepared to tell you because
I don't know. But I expect it will be within a matter of days.''
    Goetz is charged with four counts of attempted murder in the
shootings of four teen-agers he said tried to rob him and with
possession of a .38-caliber revolver. Two of the victims remain
hospitalized.
    Goetz' family has offered to pay his bail, but he turned down the
offer, cousin Ludwig Goetz Jr. of Orlando, Fla., told The New York
Times in an interview published today. ''The bail is not the problem,
it's Bernhard.''
    Telephone technicican Jose M. Gonzalez offered his life savings in a
$50,000 cashier's check he brought to a Manhattan court Friday. Goetz
thanked Gonzalez, who had once been robbed, but rejected the offer.
    Financial support continued to pour in Friday as the Guardian Angels
patrol group collected $700 from subway riders and pledges of up to
$1,400 were made to a legal defense fund hastily formed in Goetz'
neighborhood.
    There was no accounting of what had been collected.
    Goetz was being held in a unit of the Rikers Island prison reserved
for notorious or endangered prisoners. He was arraigned Thursday and
was due back in court Jan. 9 to enter pleas on the charges.
    Goetz, who had been sought by city police since Dec. 26, turned
himself in to police in Concord, N.H., on Monday. The shooting
occurred on a subway car when the four teen-agers approached Goetz
and asked for a match, then for the time of day, and then for $5,
police said.
    
AP-NY-01-05-85 0616EST
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n149  0244  03 Jan 85
BC-SUBWAY-(Balt.)
     Editorial
    c. 1984 The Baltimore Sun
    
     Subway Vigilante
    
     Bernhard Hugo Goetz, whom the New York tabloids have dubbed
''Subway Vigilante'' and ''Death Wish Gunman,'' is scheduled to be
returned to New York today to face charges of attempted murder for
shooting four youths who accosted and perhaps threatened him on a
subway. Mr. Goetz fled to New Hampshire when police began closing in
on him. He turned himself in there and waived extradition.
     He will be coming home to something of a hero's welcome. When
police established a hotline for tips about the then unidentified
''vigilante'' of the headlines, they were overwhelmed by New Yorkers
calling to applaud his action. The other headline, ''Death Wish
Gunman,'' refers to adecade-old Charles Bronson movie about a New
Yorker who lured hoodlums to attack him on the streets in order that
he might kill them. That movie broke attendance records in New York.
Audience reaction was so enthusiastically pro-gunman that the
phenomenon became the subject of much journalistic, political and
academic discussion -and concern.
     That same sort of reaction, discussion and concern are now abundant
in New York and the nation. Both the mayor of New York City and the
governor of New York state have publicly and properly warned against
such self-defense and vigilante action (those are not the same thing;
it is not known yet which Mr. Goetz was engaged in). We say properly
because no modern large city can allow armed individuals to take the
law into their hands in this fashion.
     ''Why not?'' many law-abiding citizens demand. One good answer is
that such activity is dangerous to the innocent. Vigilantes and the
self-protecting gunman can easily victimize bystanders. Mr. Goetz
fired a pistol four times in a subway car. That no one other than his
assailants was hurt or killed is a bit of luck that won't always be
present in incidents such as this.
     We suspect that many New Yorkers calling police to voice support
for Mr. Goetz are merely releasing the fear and frustration that
living in a crime-ridden, crowded big city creates. It's like
cheering Charles Bronson. But for many others, we also suspect, there
is a real belief that this sort of action is needed. Things are that
bad.
     Officials in New York and in other cities and states where violent
crime is a major problem had better pay close attention to this
phenomenon. Applause for a real-life ''Death Wish'' Gunman goes
beyond movie fantasies, beyond victims' rights movements, beyond
insistence on tougher sentencing. It is a signal that if the law
enforcement establishment can't make city streets safe, there is a
growing segment of the population that is ready to turn to
unconventional enforcement.
    
     End Editorial, Subway.
    
    
nyt-01-03-85 0541est
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n136  0039  04 Jan 85
BC-EDIT-SUBWAY Undated
c.1985 N.Y. Times News Service
    The N.Y. Times says in an editorial in its editions of Friday, Jan.
4, 1985:
    Why Surrender on the Subway?
    Is Bernhard Goetz a hero for allegedly shooting four teenagers he
thought were about to mug him on a subway train? Or is he a
trigger-happy vigilante? The questions, reverberating in New York and
beyond, serve mostly to confuse the issue. The choice is not between
taking the law into one's own hands or no law at all. In fact, much
can feasibly be done about subway crime. The Goetz case makes clear
the need to do it.
    Reported crimes in the subways increased by about 3.5 percent in
1984, while going down about 3.7 percent on the street. With the city
police regaining manpower and morale, the muggers and chain-snatchers
now prefer the trains.
    Still, the absolute amount of serious subway crime is small - 38
reported felonies per day. The larger problem involves mischief that
never gets reflected in the statistics: graffiti, vandalism,
harassing passengers for handouts. The pervasiveness of that mischief
generates fear that a system millions must ride has slipped out of
control.
    Can't 3,600 Transit Police officers do a better job of keeping
order? Yes, say police experts, if properly motivated, trained and
aware of the need to take all that mischief as seriously as the 38
felonies. The underlying problem is morale. For years, the Transit
Police force has been considered second-rate, its officers dispirited
by the decrepitude of their environment and equipment. The sourness
extends to the top of city government, where a struggle between the
city police and the Transit Authority over control of the Transit
Police remains unresolved.
    The mission of the transit patrol force needs to be clarified and
its motivation built up. That might be done by committing it to a
sustained campaign against quality-of-life offenses, with additional
resources and strong backing from Albany and City Hall. The right
leadership could use such a mandate to inspire the troops. The
muggers would get the message: the cops care again and the system is
coming back under control.
    No bureaucratic conflicts ought to deter such a campaign. If the
city police can carry it off better, let the T.A. grant them full
authority. If neither agency seems up to the job, then why not look
again at lively ideas like that of a Police Corps? It would enlarge
and improve police forces, with officers serving three-year stints in
exchange for college scholarships. As originally proposed, their
first task was to have been securing the New York City subway system.
    Surrender or self-defense? That's not the issue at all. Mayor Koch
and Governor Cuomo are right to speak out against vigilantism, but
until they accept their duty to the public on the Transit Police
problem, their ringing denunciations miss the point.
    
nyt-01-04-85 0336est
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Extract from New Hampshire story:

    As Goetz, wearing a bullet-proof vest under a leather jacket, was
led from the courthouse to the Merrimack County Jail, a reporter
asked if he had anything to say.
    ''Vultures,'' Goetz replied. Asked who he meant, he said, ''You.''
***
Another extract:

    In a 1982 hearing in which he appealed the denial of his request for
a gun permit, Goetz said he had a ''minor permanent injury'' from the
assault. He complained that the mugger ''was kept for two hours and
35 minutes. ... I was there in the Criminal Court Building for six
hours and five minutes,'' and that three weeks later he saw the same
youth attack a couple.
    The youth pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault charges and served
four months of a six-month sentence, authorities said.

n166  0436  05 Jan 85
BC-SUBWAY-(Balt.)2TAKES
     By John Schidlovsky
    c. 1984 The Baltimore Sun
    
     ADVANCED FOR SUN. JAN. 6.
    
     New York - His neighbors call him a loner and a victim. The
tabloids call him a vigilante. Thousands of New Yorkers call him a
hero.
     But Bernhard Hugo Goetz, the man who claims to have shot four
teenagers who asked him for $5 on the subway December 22, has said he
acted because he was ''frightened'' of muggers.
     Mr. Goetz, a 37-year-old, self-employed electronics engineer, gave
that explanation to his sister, Bernice Goetz, of Orlando, Fla., who
spoke with him several times after he turned himself in to police in
Concord, N.H., Monday.
     ''Living in New York taught him to be frightened,'' said Bernice
Goetz of her brother.
     Fear is a word that recurs constantly when New Yorkers talk about
riding the subway. So prevalent is this emotion that it has made Mr.
Goetz - who was ordered held on $50,000 cash bail on four charges of
attempted murder - into an extraordinary urban hero.
     ''I'm glad he did what he did,'' said Jerry Hodges, a 37-year-old
consulting firm employee as he headed toward a subway at a
mid-Manhattan station last week. ''It will put some fear into those
people who prey on others.''
     Another subway rider, 28-year-old Lourdes Ramirez, said she didn't
like people taking guns into the subways. But she said she could
understand how someone might get frustrated by all the crime on the
trains.
     ''It's bad. I know somebody who got stabbed with a screwdriver even
though he gave them all his money,'' she said.
     According to New York police, three of the four youths shot in last
month's incident were carrying sharpened screwdrivers. Investigators
said the teenagers approached a male passenger and asked for a match,
then for the time of day and then demanded $5.
     Police said the gunman replied, ''I have $5 for each of you,''
reached into his pocket and pulled out a .38-caliber pistol.
     At Mr. Goetz's arraignment here Thursday, prosecutor Susan Braver
said he had shot the youths ''methodically'' and ''only stopped
because he ran out of ammunition.''
     Two of the teenagers remain hospitalized, and doctors say one of
them might be paralyzed for life. The other two youths have been
released from the hospital.
     The news that Mr. Goetz had claimed to be the man some called the
''Death Wish vigilante'' - a term the tabloids here borrowed from the
Charles Bronson movie of the 1970s - shocked some of Mr. Goetz's
neighbors in the well-to-do building on West 14th street where he has
a 9th-floor apartment.
     ''Bernie was a model citizen,'' said Allan Horwitz, 37, who lives
one floor above Mr. Goetz's unit in the Courtney House, a 236-unit
building on the busy commercial street near Greenwich Village.
     Mr. Horwitz said that Mr. Goetz was ''brainy, not brawny,'' and
enjoyed visiting and playing with the Horwitz's four young children.
     ''Bernie's the kind of guy that if someone punched him, I think
he'd walk away,'' Mr. Horwitz said.
     According to acquaintances and family members, Mr. Goetz was born
in New York City, one of four children to German immigrant parents,
Bernhard and Gertrude Goetz. In the late 1940s, the couple moved to
upstate New York where they ran the Silver Lake Dairy in Red Hook.
The Goetzes also operated a bookbinding business.
     Robert Bowman, who has worked for the family-run dairy for more
than 30 years, recalled young Bernhard, whose nickname was Bu, as
someone who ''seemed to be a very stable boy'' and close to his
family.
     ''He was always very quiet, very smart, very courteous,'' said Mr.
Bowman, who said he last saw the younger Bernhard Goetz in September
when they attended the funeral of the senior Mr. Goetz.
     The boy went to school at Rhinebeck Central and then to a private
school in St. Gallen, Switzerland. In 1963, the Goetz family moved to
Orlando, where Bernhard Goetz, Sr., went into the home-building
business with his brother, Ludwig.
     After graduating from New York University with a degree in nuclear
engineering, Bernhard joined the family in Orlando. He worked in the
family business - which by this time was prospering in the Orlando
real estate boom - as a contractor, and in 1971 he got married. By
the mid-1970s, however, he and his wife, Elizabeth, had divorced.
     Always interested in electronics as a child, Mr. Goetz moved back
to New York and started his own electronics firm based in his
apartment. A specialist in repairing generators and transformers, Mr.
Goetz traveled frequently around the country as an electronics
troubleshooter.
     Bernice Goetz, his sister, recalled that her brother always liked
New York because of its great variety. But ''he didn't like the
crime,'' she said.
     Neighbors of Mr. Goetz say he was deeply upset about an incident
that happened to him in 1981. As he emerged from a subway stop
carrying electronic equipment, Mr. Goetz was accosted by three youths
who tried to rob him. A police officer foiled the effort and one
youth was apprehended.
     ''He came back to the building all sore and bleeding,'' recalled
Mr. Horwitz of his downstairs neighbor.
     What apparently upset Mr. Goetz even more than the physical attack
was that the apprehended youth was soon released. Shortly after the
incident, Mr. Goetz applied for a pistol permit, telling authorities
that he had seen the same youth attack another couple.
     But New York police turned down Mr. Goetz's application for a
pistol, saying he had not demonstrated sufficient need to arm
himself. In response, Mr. Goetz went to Florida and obtained a pistol
there, according to investigators who spoke to him last week.
     ''We knew Bernie had a gun but we didn't know he didn't have a
permit,'' said Mr. Horwitz, who said he and his wife merely asked Mr.
Goetz not to carry his gun when he played with the Horwitz's children.
     In recent years, neighbors say, Mr. Goetz became active in
neighborhood and tenant organizations. He helped circulate a petition
asking for greater police protection in the 14th street area, a
neighborhood that has seen increased drug activity and other crime in
recent years.
     ''Bernie has an abiding concern with the area,'' said Ralph Naden,
the chairman of a neighborhood group called For A Better 14th Street,
or FAB 14. He said he remembered Mr. Goetz attending a large,
anti-crime rally last July.
     Some of Mr. Goetz's neighbors felt he seemed a little obsessed with
the crime problem. They recall that Mr. Goetz seemed to have no other
diversions or friendships.
     ''I never saw him with anyone else,'' said Rodney Dugas, an actor
who has lived in the 14th street apartment building 10 years and who
remembers thinking Mr. Goetz seemed ''a quiet, strange kind of guy.''
     Mr. Dugas said his first reaction on hearing that a tenant had been
charged with the ''subway vigilante'' shootings was to say, ''I guess
it's Bernie.''
     Although many Courtney House tenants said they supported Mr. Goetz
and promptly began contributing money to his defense, others in the
building said they disapproved of the shooting.
     ''I thought it was completely excessive force,'' said Steven
Leventhal, a 40-year-old stockbroker. However, he said he understood
his fellow-New Yorkers' praise for Mr. Goetz. ''There's a widespread
sense that there's no justice.''
    justice.''
     Because the four youths shot on the subway are black and Mr. Goetz
is white, some New Yorkers have feared that the incident might create
racial problems. But that has not happened, partly because even many
black New Yorkers support the subway shootings as an act of
self-defense.
     ''I would have done exactly the same thing,'' said subway rider
Hodges, who is black. ''Something's got to be done on the subways - 
it's like Vietnam down there.''
     Mr. Horwitz and others who have known Mr. Goetz said they never
heard him make any racial statements.
     ''Bernie was not a prejudiced man. He was prejudiced against punks
and marauders,'' Mr. Horwitz said.
     End Subway.
    
    
nyt-01-05-85 0744est
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