{"id":7499,"date":"2014-12-22T17:01:20","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T17:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/12\/22\/bernie-goetz-30-years-later\/"},"modified":"2014-12-22T17:01:20","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T17:01:20","slug":"bernie-goetz-30-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/12\/22\/bernie-goetz-30-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"From Gunman to Squirrel Man: Bernie Goetz, 30 Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/.a\/6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c726108b970b-pi\" style=\"float: left;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Bernard goetz\" class=\"asset  asset-image at-xid-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c726108b970b img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/.a\/6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c726108b970b-320wi\" style=\"margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;\" title=\"Bernard goetz\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Bernard Goetz, mild-mannered electronics nerd, looked like an easy mark, a slap job.&#0160; And so he got slapped around, thrown through plate glass windows, mugged and harrassed.&#0160;&#0160;He just wanted to be left alone to tinker in his basement.&#0160; Those were the days before Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City.&#0160; One day&#0160; Goetz decided not to take it any more and acquired a .38 &#39;equalizer.&#39;&#0160; And so the four black punks, armed with sharpened screwdrivers, who demanded money of him on the New York subway 30 years ago today, December 22, 1984, paid a serious price to the delight of conservatives and the consternation of liberals.&#0160;To the former he became a folk hero, to the latter a &#39;racist.&#39;&#0160; It was a huge story back then.&#0160;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Things didn&#39;t go well for the black thugs whom Goetz shot.&#0160; One of the miscreants, <a href=\"http:\/\/nypost.com\/2011\/12\/23\/one-of-bernhard-goetzs-victims-kills-self-on-anniversary-of-subway-shoot-2\/\" target=\"_self\">James Ramseur<\/a>, killed himself on the 27th anniversary of the subway shooting.&#0160; This was 17 months after having been released from prison where he served 25 years for raping a young woman on a Bronx rooftop.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Darrell Caby brought a civil action against Goetz, was awarded millions, but collected nothing.&#0160; Barry Allen continued his life of petty crime and was in and out of prison.&#0160; Troy Canty was arrested for domestic abuse.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Meanwhile Goetz, now 67, flourishes and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biography.com\/people\/bernhard-goetz-578520\" target=\"_self\">runs a store<\/a> called &quot;Vigilante Electronics.&quot;&#0160; Wikipedia also informs us that Goetz is involved with squirrel rescue in the city.<sup id=\"cite_ref-84\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bernhard_Goetz#cite_note-84\">[84]<\/a><\/sup> He installs squirrel houses, feeds squirrels, and performs first aid.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">A heart-warming story on this, the eve of the eve of Christmas Eve.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bernard Goetz, mild-mannered electronics nerd, looked like an easy mark, a slap job.&#0160; And so he got slapped around, thrown through plate glass windows, mugged and harrassed.&#0160;&#0160;He just wanted to be left alone to tinker in his basement.&#0160; Those were the days before Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City.&#0160; One day&#0160; Goetz decided not &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/12\/22\/bernie-goetz-30-years-later\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;From Gunman to Squirrel Man: Bernie Goetz, 30 Years Later&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-and-punishment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}