Jury Selection Begins in Trial of Bernhard Goetz

Jury selection began Monday in the attempted murder trial of Bernhard H. Goetz, and the unrepentant subway gunman said criminals must realize that being shot is a “risk they are going to have to take.”

Attorneys began selecting 12 jurors and four alternates from a pool of 104 men and women, including a nun in a habit, gathered during three months of preliminary screening.

Goetz, 39, wearing a maroon button-down shirt and jeans, smiled tentatively as he was introduced to the potential jurors in the largest courtroom at the state Supreme Court in Manhattan.

His lawyer, Barry Slotnick, told the panel: “Our great concern here is to get a fair jury to judge this man. All we’re looking for is honest, fair, truth-speaking jurors.”

Wounded Four Youths

Goetz, armed with a silver-colored pistol, wounded four youths on a crowded subway train on Dec. 22, 1984, after at least one of them asked him for $5.

The gangly, bespectacled electronics specialist, who had been injured in a mugging three years earlier, contended that he had shot them in self-defense because he was afraid they would hurt him.

All Have Arrest Records

All four shooting victims, now 21, have arrest records.

Crime-weary Americans hailed the subway gunman as a hero, but some black leaders charged that the shooting was racially motivated. Goetz is white. The four youths are black.

After two grand juries considered the case, he was charged with four counts of attempted murder and four counts of assault as well as illegal weapons possession.