$5 for each of you
January 3, 1985: A man shoots four teenagers and gets applause; Reagan tries to make federal employees easier to fire; Alex Keaton skips love to become a father
It’s a Saturday, during Family Ties’ two-week break over the holidays in 1984. It’s 1:30PM. We’re on a subway in New York City. Our ears are ringing.
A teenager is prostrate on the floor of the subway car, full of fear, sliding away from another man, a bespectacled electronics engineer, who wears a blue jacket and holds a loaded and warm .38 special. This man has just used four of his five chambered bullets to shoot three other teenagers in the car.
The man stands over the teenager.
“You don’t look so bad” he says, “here’s another…” He pumps his last bullet into the young man on the floor, severing his spine.
"If I had more bullets, I would have shot them all again and again. My problem was I ran out of bullets,” the engineer said later in a taped confession. He added, "I was gonna, I was gonna gouge one of the guys' eyes out with my keys afterwards"
The shooter ran onto the tracks and fled. He went to Vermont, burned his blue jacket, and scattered his gun in pieces in the woods. Three teens were treated for bullet wounds to the torso and would recover. The one on the floor, Darrell Cabey, was paralyzed for life.
Two days later, on Christmas Eve 1984, the NYC police opened a tip line to try to identify or locate the shooter. The line was flooded with calls…IN FAVOR of the shooting.
Hundreds of the callers praised him. Some volunteered to help pay for the gunman's defense if he was arrested, and a few suggested that he should run for mayor.
''Many of the calls we have received are in sympathy with the subject that did the shooting,'' said Sgt. Raymond O'Donnell, a police spokesman. ''We have not had the call we need, with a tip that would lead us to a suspect.'' — NYT 12/25/1984
The shooter turned himself in days later.
A decade’s worth of testimony would establish that the shooter, Bernard Goetz, was approached by at least one of the teens, 19-year old Troy Canty, who according to Goetz, greeted him with a smile and said “give me $5 dollars.” Witnesses said Goetz replied “Yes. I have $5 for each of you,” and then opened fire.
The teens had no guns. Two were carrying screwdrivers, which despite early reports were not “sharpened” and never left the kids’ pockets on the train. They said they were using them to pry open video games and steal quarters. All four teens had juvenile or criminal records, but none of 12 eyewitnesses saw visible threats of violence before Goetz shot all the kids.
Goetz was acquitted of attempted murder and assault. His self-defense argument prevailed based on the judge’s instruction that if Goetz *felt* his life was threatened, reasonably or unreasonably, his fear legally justified shooting four people. He was convicted of 3rd-degree weapons possession. He served eight months.
He purchased the gun in Florida. It was concealed, loaded, and unlicensed. But what he did with it was deemed to be within his rights, because he “subjectively” felt lethal force was necessary.
The Guardian Angels and the NRA contributed to Goetz’s legal fund. Joan Rivers sent him a telegram with “love and kisses.” Newspaper mailboxes were filled with letters of support for him. Radio call-in shows were the same, a wave of outraged relief and praise for Goetz. There were just too many unshot Black teenagers on the subway. He was a folk hero.
He acquired the nickname Subway Vigilante, and the public dialogue became more about vigilantism and its necessity, rather than about the details of the incident. Goetz admitted the whole thing. He said he was like a cornered rat, provoked. “I knew in my heart that I was a murderer,” he said
This is complicated. There’s a lot to consider.
For the sake of this history blog, consider the similar vigilante praise we have observed since then: Daniel Penny, acquitted after choking out a troubled Black man on a subway in 2023, who just received an award for “service and sacrifice” from the Marines and was hired by a venture capital firm; Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year old acquitted after killing two street protesters in 2020 with an AR-15, George Zimmerman, acquitted after killing Trayvon Martin in 2012 with a 9mm that Zimmerman then auctioned off for $250K as “a piece of American history”; even the McCloskeys in St. Louis, a couple who pointed guns clumsily with angry faces to threaten BLM protesters walking past their house in 2020. They were pardoned by the Missouri governor and were honored at the Republican convention.
Now there’s a whole different brand of vigilantism that collects praise — the kind that protects us from multimillionaire CEOs. Indirect self-defense. Luigi Mangione appeared in court for the first time last week after attracting a perplexingly large and vocal fan base. He gunned down a health insurance CEO in broad daylight.
The Goetz case is a reference touchpoint when we talk about similar cases today. He was the original vigilante in the mass media age. Except now guns are easier to get and more legal to carry.
In 1984, he appealed to Americans who were frustrated by formal law enforcement, Americans who felt entitled to take justice into their own hands. Or were supportive of someone else doing it.
Clint Eastwood’s famous line “go ahead, make my day” was from Sudden Impact, the #1 movie a year earlier. Reagan himself will use this catchphrase in a speech three months from now, threatening anyone who dares to raise our taxes. Dirty Harry was too virtuous for the law, and we dug it.
In other news this week -
Ya think? The burgeoning VCR industry is making movies so easy to watch, America is discovering that the bar for a movie “worth trying” is waayy lower. Video stores now have sections with signs like “Le Bad Cinema” and “Rent a Turkey.”
“Revolution!” This would be the VCR’s first big holiday season.
Meanwhile, the second installment of Reagan’s administration is still struggling to reduce Federal spending without breaking conflicting campaign promises about social safety nets, defense spending, and tax increases.
This front page article feels familiar -
In a policy that takes effect Wednesday, the Reagan Administration is encouraging Federal agencies to hire temporary employees because they receive fewer fringe benefits and can be dismissed much more easily than career Civil Service workers - NYT 1/2/1985
The major cited concern was merit. Temps could be hired without the standard selection and screening process required for federal civil servants.
Reagan’s Office of Personnel Management (the hub for Musk’s recent “Fork in the Road” email) described temps as the “lowest cost type of employment.” An OPM memo also said “Temporary employees have significantly fewer rights and benefits than career employees” Yay!
Civil servants have always irritated a certain segment of Americans.
Family Ties, S1E14: Oh, Donna
Mom is back!
The Keatons are hosting a Lamaze class in their living room, practicing a natural childbirth method. The Lamaze class consists of two couples, a single mom DONNA, and the instructor.
One father, LARRY, is obnoxious. He can’t conceal his disapproval of Donna’s singlehood — “Wait a minute, time out!,” he says, interrupting the teacher, “Aren’t we missing somebody here? Where is your husband?”
Later ALEX bumps into Donna alone in the kitchen. She mentions that she’s single. From that point it’s a weird scene to watch. He delivers the rest of his lines to her belly. “So how did you….ohhhh, I get it.” [laughter]
He is off-balance. Suddenly Donna is a unicorn. A vessel. She says she’s this instructor’s first ever single Lamaze student. Forty years ago, this was semi-scandalous. No husband?! “I understand these things,” says Alex, “I’m a contemporary guy.”
Donna’s baby kicks. She asks Alex to feel it. They have a sweet moment.
A new partner
As MOM and DAD are setting up for another class, ALEX walks in, strangely enthusiastic about Lamaze now. “Lamaze class! Great! Can’t believe I’m just in time.” He helps set up the room. He’s motivated. He asks about Donna.
ALEX: She let me touch her belly the other day!…Parenting is a wonderful thing. I mean, bringing a child into the world. Caring for it. Loving it. [to his parents:] Ahh, you guys wouldn’t understand.
When the class arrives, Alex grabs DONNA’s hand and helps her set up her “nest” on the floor. He kneels behind her with a goofy grin and asks to be her birthing partner.
A bad idea?
MOM and DAD are in the kitchen. This is the most I’ve seen the Keaton parents so far apart on an issue. Dad is disturbed by Alex’s obsession with fatherhood, when he isn’t a father. Mom thinks it’s not a big deal, he’s being supportive. (Alex is 18)
ALEX arrives, back from a hospital tour with Donna. He’s all in now. Breathless and effusive. He’s talking like a father. He is building a wooden crib in the garage.
It’s not real
DONNA comes over for a private Lamaze practice with ALEX. He starts talking about which nursery school and which neighborhood…
Donna finally puts on the brakes. She tells him he’s acting like they’re married. So Alex asks her to marry him! Nope, she says. This is getting too weird. She walks out for good.
Alex laments to MOM and DAD when they come home. He says he just wanted an “instant family.”
ALEX: It would have been all settled for me. I would have skipped all that stuff, like uh, meeting girls and dating…[disdainfully]..falling in love.
They support him. Alex feels better. Everything is OK again.