The Saturday afternoon before Christmas in 1984, on a New York City subway car making its run downtown, two black teenagers approached Bernhard Goetz. One of the teens said to the slightly built blond man, "Give me five dollars." Seconds later, Goetz fired five shots from his Smith & Wesson revolver and four young men were injured--one with a severed spinal cord. After the train came to a quick stop, Goetz jumped to the tracks below and disappeared into the darkness of the subway tunnel. City newspapers dubbed the gunman "the subway vigilante."

Additional Tags

bernhard goetz, bernhard goetz trial (1987), famous trials, the court system

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Classroom Considerations

• Knovation Readability Score: 5 (1 low difficulty, 5 high difficulty)
• The intended use for this resource is Instructional