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40 years before Daniel Penny case, Bernhard Goetz's subway vigilante shooting shocked US ahead of Christmas
Bernhard Goetz, then a 37-year-old electronics technician, defended himself from a group of would-be robbers on a New York City subway car Dec. 22, 1984.
Four decades later, another New York straphanger argued self-defense to beat homicide charges in another Big Apple subway vigilante case.
In May 2023, Daniel Penny, a 26-year-old Marine veteran who was studying architecture at a New York college, placed 30-year-old Jordan Neely in a headlock to stop a violent outburst that frightened passengers and involved threats about killing them and going to prison for life.
Jurors found Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide earlier this month after prosecutors asked the judge to dismiss the most serious charge of manslaughter.
DANIEL PENNY FOUND NOT GUILTY IN SUBWAY CHOKEHOLD TRIAL
Bernhard Goetz, who shot four youths on a crowded subway because he felt he was about to be robbed, was cleared of all attempted murder charges. He was convicted on only one of 13 counts, third-degree weapons possession. (Bettmann via Getty images)
The trials of Goetz and Penny were both highly politicized and scrutinized because of the subjects’ races. Goetz and Penny are both White. Neely and the four men Goetz shot are Black. Legal scholars have spent years discussing whether Goetz would have shot White teens under similar circumstances. Penny’s defense repeatedly accused prosecutors of trying to unfairly inject racial undertones into a trial that did not involve hate crime charges.
Both cases also reflect deeply held public sentiment that crime was getting out of control in New York City. Goetz had been mugged multiple times in the past, which is why he said he was carrying a handgun. Penny put Neely in a chokehold after a spate of subway incidents involving mentally ill homeless people attacking passengers, telling police, “These guys are pushing people in front of trains and stuff.”
Violent crime dropped dramatically in New York City in the late 1990s and 2000s, but some crimes, robberies in particular, have risen again after a wave of anti-police rioting in 2020 and left-wing political movement to “defund the police.”
KYLE RITTENHOUSE TRIAL ‘A SHAM AT BEST,’ SUBWAY VIGILANTE BERNIE GOETZ SAYS: ‘SATISFY A MOB’
Daniel Penny returns to the courtroom after a break during his trial in Manhattan Criminal Court Dec. 3, 2024, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Goetz was acquitted on attempted murder charges but spent 8½ months in jail for possessing the handgun he used to defend himself without a license.
The case involved four teens — Darrell Cabey, James Ramseur, Troy Canty and Barry Allen. The first two were armed with sharpened screwdrivers, which they claimed were not weapons but tools to break into coin boxes in arcade games, according to court records.
They got on a Manhattan-bound No. 2 train in the Bronx and surrounded Goetz after he boarded at the 14th Street station in Manhattan and sat down by himself.
Goetz had an unlicensed .38-caliber pistol in his belt loaded with five rounds.
Bernhard Goetz leaves the courthouse. (Rick Maiman/Sygma via Getty Images)
The teens approached Goetz, and without displaying any weapons, Canty told him, “Give me $5.”
Rather than being robbed, Goetz pulled out the gun and fired four shots – striking Canty in the chest and Allen in the back. Another round went through Ramseur’s arm and into his side. The fourth shot missed Cabey. Goetz waited a moment, then fired his last shot at Cabey, severing his spinal cord and leaving him paralyzed.
WATCH ‘SCANDALOUS: THE SUBWAY VIGILANTE’ ON FOX NATION
A No. 2 train subway car in the aftermath of the Bernhard Goetz shooting at Manhattan’s Chambers Street Station Dec. 22, 1984. (Carmine Donofrio/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
“I said, ‘You seem to be all right, here’s another,’” Goetz later told detectives. “If I was a little more under self-control … I would have put the barrel against his forehead and fired.”
He added that if he’d been carrying more bullets, he would have kept shooting.
The conductor stopped the train and radioed police. Goetz jumped off the train and fled on foot.
STREAM DANIEL PENNY’S EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW ON FOX NATION
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.
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Dressed in a fuzzy chicken costume, a then-2-year-old girl — accompanied by her parents dressed as farmers — walked around their new neighborhood ringing doorbells and asking for candy. It was July.
That is how the Westbrook community first met and fell in love with Lucy Hanson five years ago.
Everyone in Lucy’s neighborhood is close, Sue Salisbury, her neighbor, said, but it’s particularly hard not to love Lucy. She trick-or-treats year round. She jumps into her neighbors’ piles of leaves as they’re raking. She rides around the neighborhood on a seat on her dad’s bike with a speaker playing music attached in the back.
“She’s got the whole neighborhood wrapped around her finger,” Joe Salisbury, Sue’s husband, said.
So when Lucy was diagnosed with cancer at the end of October, the neighborhood decided to flood her with love as she spends the next nine months, holidays included, in the hospital for chemotherapy treatment.
Friends, neighbors, strangers and even people from other countries have sent Lucy a deluge of holiday cards, donations, gifts and meals.
Lucy’s aunt, Juna Ferguson, shared Lucy’s story on social media and asked for donations and meals to help. She also submitted Lucy’s name to The Angel Card Project, an online charity that requests greeting cards for people in need, so Lucy would feel as much love as possible during the holiday season.
In just a few weeks, Lucy has received hundreds and hundreds of cards, letters and packages, including some from as far as Germany and Australia. On Meal Train — a website that facilitates meal giving to families in hard times — people have donated almost $22,000 for the Hanson family and sent dozens of meals. Lucy’s wish list sold out within five minutes — three separate times.
The Hanson family
In many ways, Lucy is just like any other 7-year-old girl from Westbrook.
She loves Harry Potter (she’s in Gryffindor, of course). She’s reading “Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix,” but it’s a little scary for her. She just became a Brownie in the Girl Scouts. She wants to be a music teacher when she grows up. She loves to draw and sing and dance and do gymnastics and musical theatre. She has a best friend named Mallory who she has known since she was 6 months old. She’ll cry if there’s a snow day and she can’t go to school and see Mallory.
She’s witty and kind and bubbly and fun.
But in other ways, Lucy’s life doesn’t resemble that of other kids.
Last month, she spent more time in the hospital than at home. If she’s in the hospital, she has a robot she can drive around school to participate in her classes. (She dressed up the robot with a jacket, a hat and a sparkly backpack to make it look more like her).
Lucy is much smaller than most girls her age, as a genetic condition slows her growth. And she knows a lot more about cancer than most children.
She’s used to doctors and nurses and hospitals.
A few months after she was born in July 2018, she developed a rash on her face, which eventually spread to other parts of her body. After visiting three dermatologists and ruling out eczema, Lucy ultimately was diagnosed with Rothmund-Thomson syndrome type 2, a rare genetic condition that primarily affects her skin and bones and increases her chances of developing several types of cancer. Lucy is one of about 500 documented cases of RTS in the world.
For six years, Lucy was healthy. But in October, while she was attending a conference for families affected by RTS in Salt Lake City, she started to limp. She seemed to get better after a while, but a week and a half later, she couldn’t put any weight on her foot.
That’s when she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in her right tibia. The doctors said Lucy will need nine months of chemotherapy and a below-the-knee amputation in February of 2026.
“How will we navigate the rest of Lucy’s life?” Staci Hanson, Lucy’s mom, thought.
Even though their lives had flipped upside down, Staci and her husband Jason decided to live as normally as possible.
They make sure Lucy does school work and takes walks. A school teacher checks in with her at the hospital and a child life specialist comes to play with her. Last week, they made slime together.
The nurses and doctors at MaineHealth Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital, where Lucy is receiving her chemotherapy treatments, have made magic in a very nonmagical situation, Staci said. In the hospital, Lucy got to pick out her own Christmas tree and ornaments for her room and even made a gingerbread house.
In the past month, the Hansons have spent just five days at home. Staci and Jason take shifts at the hospital. One night, mom stays with Lucy, the next it’s dad. They only live 15 minutes from the hospital, so it’s not a long drive to come home to get new things or do laundry, Jason said.
“It feels like a long time,” Lucy protested.
Her parents are honest with her about RTS, osteosarcoma and her approaching amputation in February.
“We try to lift her up and tell her, ‘Yeah, your world is going to look a little bit different, but you can still live a super normal life even with a prosthetic,’” Staci said. “So we’ve shown her lots of videos of people doing gymnastics and dance and just living fulfilling lives even though they have a prosthetic.”
Rallying around
Since Lucy met Joe and Sue Salisbury while trick-or-treating in the summer years ago, she has become part of their family.
“It’s like having a grandchild,” Joe said.
Lucy will often randomly call the Salisburys to invite them over for a movie night. No matter what they’re doing, even if they’re in the middle of dinner, they always accept.
“You don’t say no to her,” Sue said.
So they will stop what they’re doing, walk across the road in their slippers, and cuddle up with Lucy on the couch to watch whatever movie she wants.
Now, Sue and Joe hold on to those memories of her until they can resume that tradition.
In the meantime, the community is doing everything it can to help the family. The less the Hansons have to worry about, the more they can focus on Lucy and themselves.
Joe and Sue volunteered to receive the letters for Lucy, since the Hansons are rarely home to check their mail.
“This is Lucy’s fan following,” Joe said, pointing to two packages and a bag stuffed with letters.
The Salisburys collected at least 400 cards for her in three weeks. They go to the hospital about once a week to visit Lucy and give her the letters. They would like to see her more, but the visits are limited due to Lucy’s compromised immune system.
The Salisburys own the Daily Grind, a coffee shop in Westbrook. Customers come through all the time to drop off packages and cards for Lucy and ask about her.
Neighbors pick up the Hansons’ mail and plow their driveway.
Joe isn’t surprised by the response from the community. In Westbrook, people have always helped each other out.
“I think it’s just another example of how great the Westbrook community is that everybody is pulling together for Lucy,” Sue said.
The Hanson family has received so many letters and donations, it’s impossible to write enough thank you cards, Staci said. They are saving most of the cards to give to Lucy later, because she still has many more months in the hospital.
“I don’t know how we’ll ever repay our community for the love that we’ve received,” Staci said.
Lucy’s favorite card so far has a drawing of two ducks sitting in a yellow bowl of tomato soup with some crackers on the side.
“Thought some soup and quackers might make you feel better,” Lucy read from the card.
In another package, Lucy received fake snowballs. So Lucy did what any other kid would do —started a snowball fight in her hospital room with her doctors and nurses.
Those interested in sending gifts and cards or signing up to give a meal can visit mealtrain.com/trains/w4lwd0. The RTS Foundation accepts donations at rtsplace.org/. People can also join “The Lucy League” by buying merchandise at bonfire.com/store/bravelikelucy/. All profits go to the Hanson family.
Local News
Massachusetts will no longer require prospective foster parents to affirm foster children’s gender identity.
Massachusetts will no longer require prospective foster parents to affirm the sexual orientation and gender identity of the children they foster, following legal challenges and criticism from religious groups.
The change comes after the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a federal lawsuit in September on behalf of two Massachusetts families, who claimed the requirement conflicted with their religious beliefs, according to a Fox News report. One couple had its foster care license revoked, while the other was threatened with revocation.
That same month, federal regulators with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) sent a letter to Massachusetts criticizing the mandate as discriminatory and a violation of the First Amendment. The agency said it would open an investigation into the matter.
On Dec. 12, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) updated its regulations, replacing language that required foster parents to affirm a child’s “sexual orientation and gender identity” with a requirement that they support a child’s “individual identity and needs.”
The shift comes amid a broader national debate, as states grapple with whether foster parents should be required to support children’s gender identity even when it conflicts with their personal or religious beliefs.
In a statement to GBH News, DCF Commissioner Staverne Miller said the agency’s top priority is ensuring children in foster care are placed in safe and supportive homes.
“We are also committed to ensuring that no one is prevented from applying or reapplying to be a foster parent because of their religious beliefs,” Miller said.
ADF lauded the change in a statement released Wednesday.
“Massachusetts has told us that this new regulation will no longer exclude Christian and other religious families from foster care because of their commonly held beliefs that boys are boys and girls are girls,” said ADF Senior Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse.
“Our clients—loving, caring foster families who have welcomed vulnerable children into their homes—as well as many other families affected by this policy, are eager to reapply for their licenses,” Widmalm-Delphonse continued. “This amendment is a step in the right direction and we commend Massachusetts officials for changing course. But this case will not end until we are positive that Massachusetts is committed to respecting religious persons and ideological diversity among foster parents.”
CONCORD — The recent fatal shooting at Brown University shows that banning guns on campus makes students more vulnerable to violence, state Rep. Sam Farrington, a University of New Hampshire senior, told reporters Dec. 17 in promoting legislation to end such bans.
Farrington, R-Rochester, and other House Republicans, also said in the Statehouse news conference that the shooting that killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia on Sunday, illustrates that Australia’s restrictive gun laws don’t protect the public.
Rep. Joe Sweeney, R-Salem, the deputy House majority leader, said gun control restrictions leave people “unable to defend themselves, their families, their peers.”
Farrington said violence similar to what occurred at Brown University in Rhode Island, which left two dead and nine injured, could occur in New Hampshire, where universities also prohibit guns on campus.
“UNH, Plymouth State, Keene State, the list goes on, they all have one thing in common — these are public universities that are infringing on the Second Amendment rights of college students right here in New Hampshire,” said Farrington.
“They claim to be gun free zones. Well if we know anything about gun-free zones, looking at Australia and Brown, we know that they are not violence free zones. They are only defenseless zones where victims are left hopeless, without any hope of defending themselves.”
He is the prime sponsor of House Bill 1793, which the Legislature will consider next year. It would prohibit public colleges and universities from regulating the possession or carrying of firearms and non-lethal weapons on campus.
Under the bill, if a college or university that received federal funds instituted such a ban, they could be sued.
Democrat speaks against legislation
State Rep. Nicholas Germana, D-Keene, a history professor at Keene State College, said Thursday he wouldn’t feel any safer if people coming on campus were packing firearms.
Any police response to an active shooter on a college campus would be fraught if armed bystanders became involved and crossfire broke out, he said.
“All the sudden police come on that campus and it’s a shootout at the OK Corral,” Germana said. “How do police know who the good guy is and who the bad guy is?”
He said the tragedy in Australia last weekend is an anomaly that doesn’t alter the fact that gun violence rates in that country decreased after strict firearm regulations were passed almost 30 years ago and remain much lower than U.S. rates.
“We can look around the world to see examples of this where the number of guns in the population at large corresponds to gun violence,” Germana said. “It’s clear that when Republicans say in this country that gun control measures do not decrease gun violence, it is demonstrably false.”
The University System of New Hampshire said in the fiscal note of House Bill 1793 that the measure could cost it as much as $500,000 because insurance premiums and liability claims would increase, more security measures would be required, firearm storage systems would be needed, expected lawsuits would create attorney fees and the ability to attract students and faculty would decrease.
These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. Don’t just read this. Share it with one person who doesn’t usually follow local news — that’s how we make an impact. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.
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