Free Republic

"Riders on the subway deserve to have a ride where they don’t feel threatened. And the mentally ill deserve to have the treatment and the protection..." "... that would allow them to work out their struggles in the protected space. We can’t have a subway system that’s both a system of transportation and housing for the homeless. Those are incompatible goals." Said Gregory Umbach, associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, quoted in "After homeless man choked on subway, NYC grapples with treatment of mentally ill" (WaPo).The incident makes me think of Bernhard Goetz, and reading on,...

On the New York City subway, Bernhard Goetz, a 45-year-old white male, shoots four young black men after they surround him and ask for $5. After wounding three of the unarmed men, Goetz pointed his gun at 18-year-old Darrell Cabey, who was not wounded but cowering terrified in the subway car, and said, "You don't look too bad, here's another." Goetz then shot Cabey in the back, severing his spinal cord. Three of the youths recovered, but Cabey was paralyzed and suffered permanent brain damage.

James Ramseur's life of crime ended yesterday with a bottle of pills in a seedy Bronx hotel room, where he was found dead 27 years to the day after he was shot by infamous "Subway Vigilante" Bernhard Goetz. Ramseur had checked into the Paradise Hotel at 2990 Boston Road on Tuesday and was supposed to check out yesterday. When he failed to return his key, the manager entered the room and found his corpse, fully clothed, with two empty prescription pill bottles next to the bed, their labels scratched off. He was 45, and left no note. Ramseur became infamous...

Twenty years ago today, on a south bound IRT No. 2 train, four young hoods armed with sharpened screwdrivers surrounded a mild-looking man and demanded money. Instead, they got the surprise of their criminal lives. Rather than meekly turn over his cash, the would-be victim pulled a .38-caliber revolver — and shot each of his attackers. Standing over one of the youths, he was heard to say, "You don't look so bad — here's another." [snip] Even before he finally surrendered nine days later following a nationwide manhunt, Bernhard Goetz had become a hero to many New Yorkers who'd...