NATION : Holdup Victim Kills Robber

A man shot and killed one of a group of young men who robbed him on a subway car, then he and the robber’s companions all fled at the next subway station in the borough of Brooklyn, police said today.

The robbery was committed late Thursday by three young men in their teens or early 20s who were among a group of about 18 traveling together, Transit Authority police spokesman Al O’Leary said.

He cautioned against comparing the shooting to the 1984 case of Bernhard Goetz, the subway gunman who shot four teen-agers Goetz said were about to rob him.

O’Leary said police believe the robbery victim, described as in his late 40s or early 50s, already had been robbed. “They had taken his wallet and gone through his pockets,” he said. In addition, O’Leary said, “This group had a gun. They apparently were passing it around, examining it. We know we’ve got two guns involved.”

As in the Goetz case, the robbed man was white and the accosters were black, but police are not ascribing racial motives to the incident, O’Leary said.