It always bugs me when media outlets claim that the thugs “asked him for $5”. Like they walked up and politely asked him- it was a mugging. The NY Daily News pushes the same “asked him for money” angle.
I saw a TV News recreation of the incident years ago shortly after it happened. They hired neat non-threatening young black men to play the role of the thugs, dressed them in white coveralls so as to appear non-threatening, had them merely walk silently towards the news caster reprising the role of Bernard Goetz, doing nothing threatening, and then having the News Caster pretending to shoot them.
The whole effort was to make it look like Bernard Goetz was an out of control lunatic with a gun and he totally just shot a bunch of innocent young men.
I thought it was bizarrely biased at the time, and in the years since I have come to realize that everyone who provides the nation with "news" is pretty much a Liberal Democrat Union member who lives in New York City and hates everything conservatives think and believe.
The one party media are currently the greatest threat facing this nation. All this other crap we are experiencing now is the consequence of us allowing one party control of the news and information systems.