COMMENTS: The Bernhard Goetz Scandal
Hausknecht, Murray
When Bernhard Goetz was approached on a New York subway by four young black men demanding $5, he drew a revolver and fired all its dum-dum bullets at them. Two were hit in the back; one remains...
...Both readers of the New York Times and the Post approved the shooting and in some cases with a barely concealed racist bias...
...When the "respectable elements" of a community echo and amplify unrestrained anger and racism, when they openly sympathize with and condone the wrongdoer, they are helping to institutionalize incivility as a way of life...
...one remains paralyzed and comatose in a hospital...
...157...
...The celebration of Bernhard Goetz is a form of incivility just as surely as his behavior was a violation of civility...
...A criminal justice system represents those constraints...
...And here is the heart of the scandal...
...a failure to indict a Goetz is just as much a failure of the system as criminals escaping deserved retribution...
...Such ironies are not terribly appealing to subway riders who must now keep a wary eye not only on potential muggers but also on law-abiding citizens who will feel freer to draw and fire their illegal revolvers to uphold law and order...
...But this was benignly to underestimate the intensity of public feeling and the irresponsibility of politicians...
...It is difficult not to empathize with the anguish of a person who sees himself in so extreme a situation...
...Some politicians also responded in this ugly way...
...The mugger's aggressiveness and often senseless violence that stir our own hostile feelings magnify the possibilities for violence in the community...
...But simple civility demands the control of impulses and acts of violence...
...Senator D'Amato volunteered to testify in Goetz's behalf, saying that "young thugs" in the subway "are menacing people by their very presence...
...Charitably viewed, Goetz was a badly frightened man who snapped under the pressure of facing a personal nightmare...
...There is only cold comfort to be had from noting the irony that those highly committed to the virtues of conservatism also celebrate Bernhard Goetz, a prototypical threat to the maintenance of that social order so dear to conservative prejudices...
...Civility requires not only control of the criminal but regulation of the demands for vengeance...
...No verdict is "Solomonic" that subverts civility...
...His violence is latent in all people...
...After all, it would take a notably irresponsible public official to even suggest condoning such behavior...
...A month later a grand jury indicted Goetz for the illegal possession of a weapon, the least serious charge that could be returned...
...Approval of Goetz cut across class lines...
...Some of the reactions to the shooting were predictable...
...The unspeakable New York Post and its visual counterpoint, television news shows, seized upon and exploited the public's immediate approval of Goetz and its gloating attitude toward his victims...
...it is especially not too far from the surface among those whose fears and anger are rooted in the very real and ever-present threat of urban crime...
...Nor was it surprising that Mayor Koch initially condemned "vigilantism" in strong terms...
...Koch gradually modified his initial stand and hailed the grand jury's decision as "Solomonic...
Vol. 32 • April 1985 • No. 2
