The Nation - News from May 22, 1987

Attorneys for subway gunman Bernhard H. Goetz began presenting their defense with testimony about a 1981 incident in which Goetz was beaten during an alleged robbery attempt. Defense attorney Barry Slotnick will argue that because of the pain Goetz suffered in the 1981 attack, his reaction to a perceived threat by four teen-agers on a subway train was reasonable. A witness to the 1981 attack testified in the trial in New York that he saw three men repeatedly punching and kicking Goetz, and an orthopedist told of treating Goetz for more than a year afterward.