In December 22, 1984, Bernhard Goetz, a 37-year-old electronics technician, protected himself from a group of potential robbers while on a New York City subway train.
Four decades later, another New York straphanger argued self-defense to beat homicide charges in another Big Apple subway vigilante case.
Fast forward to May 2023, Daniel Penny, a 26-year-old Marine veteran studying architecture at a New York college, intervened by placing 30-year-old Jordan Neely in a headlock to subdue a violent episode that caused fear among passengers and included threats of harm and imprisonment.
Recently, a jury acquitted Penny of criminally negligent homicide after prosecutors requested the judge to drop the most severe charge of manslaughter.
Screenshot from bystander video showing Jordan Neely being held in a chokehold on the New York City subway. (Luces de Nueva York/Juan Alberto Vazquez via Storyful)
The case sparked a media frenzy, and Goetz surrendered to police in Concord, New Hampshire, nine days later. He told them he’d been illegally carrying a pistol since 1981, when he had been “maimed” during a prior mugging. He also said that, on multiple occasions, he’d warded off other would-be robbers by brandishing the weapon and not firing.
Because of those prior attacks, he said, he knew the teens on the train wanted to rob him based on their behavior and the looks on their faces. Before the case went to trial, at least two of the teens reportedly admitted they were going to rob him, but a court considered those statements hearsay.
Goetz did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
