From Newsgroup: alt.law-enforcement

A provocative look back on the New York City "Subway Shooter" who, in
some ways, was the role model for George Zimmerman in the Florida
shooting of a Black teen decades later.

https://www.unz.com/article/bernie-goetz-the-marginal-character-who-moved-the-center/

The four sub-Saharans surrounded Goetz and demanded five dollars. They
had already committed crimes by sneaking on a bus and jumping the
turnstile to get on the subway. They were on their way to commit more
crimes. They were from a demographic that, by 1984, was universally
known to cause crime. Muggings typically start with the offender asking
for something. In aggressively asking Goetz for money, they were
violating Law 19 of Robert GreenerCOs 48 Laws of Power: Know who yourCOre dealing withrCodo not offend the wrong person. They were in effect,
seeking to rob an armed man who knew how to shoot, knew the signs of
being mugged since herCOd experienced a mugging, and had two prior
experiences of pulling his weapon.

Goetz pulled out his firearm and shot. Accounts differ as to the exact specifics of the shooting. Most of the witnesses on the subway car said
the five shots rang out quickly. In his later videotaped confession,
Goetz claimed to have said, rCLYou donrCOt look so bad, hererCOs another,rCY before firing a second bullet into Cabey. The two bullets fired into
Cabey caused him to be paralyzed and brain injured. The confusion over
the exact specifics of the shooting is not unusual. Most eyewitness
reports of shootings are a blur of confused recollections.

During the shooting, someone pulled the emergency brake on the subway.
The conductor of the stopped subway, which was filled with panicked
riders, went to the scene and calmly asked Goetz if he was a cop. Goetz replied that he was not and then left the subway car, traveled through
the subway tunnel to the next station, and then left the subway station
for the streets, passing police cruisers speeding to the scene. He then
rented an automobile and took off to Vermont, where he buried his
disassembled gun in a snowbank.
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