Goetz Arraigned in ‘Vigilante’ Shootings

Bernhard Hugo Goetz, arraigned on attempted murder charges Thursday in the vigilante-style shooting of four teen-agers who allegedly attempted to mug him, stood silently as a prosecutor accused him of engaging in a “shooting frenzy” that ended only because he ran out of ammunition.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Susan Braver said Goetz “methodically” shot two of the youths as they fled in one direction and fired at their companions as they ran the other way in a subway car Dec. 22 as 20 terrified passengers looked on.

She said he then walked back toward the first two he hit and fired a fifth time at one who had not fallen.

“By his own admission,” Braver added, Goetz “intended to kill each one of them.”

Criminal Court Judge Leslie Snyder ordered Goetz held on $50,000 bail. She set a hearing for next Wednesday.

“The history of Western civilization has shown us that we cannot tolerate individuals taking the law and justice into their own hands,” she said. “We have a system of law that each person must follow.”

After the 15-minute hearing, Goetz was led from the courtroom to prison on Rikers Island, where he will be kept in an isolated 13-cell maximum security section away from the rest of the inmates. Security was extremely heavy as Goetz was brought to court from Concord, N.H., where he surrendered Monday.

Goetz’s court-appointed lawyer Frank Brenner asked that his client be freed without bail. He said Goetz had no criminal record, had surrendered and gave a videotaped confession. “If he wished to flee this jurisdiction he wouldn’t be here now,” Brenner said.

But Braver gave a different picture. She said that Goetz, 37, a self-employed electronics specialist, had twice left New York since the shootings.

The shootings, which resembled a scene in the 1974 movie “Death Wish,” became a sensation here, with many callers to special police intelligence phone lines hailing the shooter as a hero, while public officials condemned his actions.

The shootings occurred on an express train headed south into the Chambers Street station in Manhattan. Four teen-agers approached a passenger and asked for a match, then for the time, then for $5, police say.

“I have $5 for each of you,” the man said, then drew a .38-caliber revolver and shot the four, striking two in the chest and two in the back, according to police accounts.

Police said three of the youths were carrying screwdrivers in their jacket pockets and all have arrest records. One is paralyzed from the waist down and in critical condition, one is in satisfactory condition and two have been released from the hospital.