Amanpour & Co., which airs on PBS and CNN International, picked up on “Five Bullets,” a new book by Elliot Williams about Bernard Goetz, the so-called subway vigilante who shot four black teenagers on the NYC subway in 1984 because he thought he was being mugged. The book has surprisingly become a handy hook for the elitist media (whose denizens probably don’t ride the NYC subway) to wring their hands once more over racism.
Interviewer Michel Martin showed a rather astonishing ignorance of recent prominent news events, mischaracterizing self-defense acts by Kyle Rittenhouse at a violent Black Lives Matter protest in Wisconsin, and Daniel Penny’s heroics against a threatening Jordan Neely on the NYC subway.
MICHEL MARTIN: So, what happened on that subway car? Like what was going on? Like set the scene for us.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, AUTHOR, “FIVE BULLETS”: So, New York City was at its roughest, quite possibly ever, just to put it in perspective. Right back then, the homicide rate in New York City was about 2000 homicides a year, 2000 murders a year. It’s about 300 now. It’s just rough in an incomprehensible way to most modern thinkers or viewers or audiences, right?
And that the subway wasn’t immune. It was rough. People were often assaulted or mugged or chain snatched or purses grabbed on the subway. So, that’s the backdrop. He got on the subway car and one of the four young men, Troy Canty is his name, either asked Bernhard Goetz for $5. Mister, can I have $5? Or demanded, give me $5. That’s not clear and that was never quite established which of the two it was. Needless to say, Goetz thought he was being mugged….
After a reasonably fair start, interviewer Martin sent the discussion into the realm of insanity.
MARTIN: Gosh, there’s so many recent cases that come to mind. When you think of this, there’s the story of Kyle Rittenhouse, he decided he was going to go help the police at this Black Lives Matter demonstration, wound up shooting somebody. And there’s the more recent case of the man who choked this guy out on a subway who was frightening people because he was sort of a Michael Jackson impersonator. And then, there’s maybe people think this is analogous to Luigi Mangione, who shot this United Health Care CEO on the street. Allegedly because he is angry with the way the health care system is treating Americans.
So talk about if you would, are there misconceptions about this case that took hold? Because of the way it was covered? Are there things that even now there’s sort of a variance from reality?
Rittenhouse was attacked repeatedly at the BLM riot in Kenosha, WI, killing two men (both of whom with violent criminal records) in self-defense, as a jury confirmed by acquitting him in November 2021.
Martin’s description of mentally ill and violent Jordan Neely had no basis in reality. Neely was not killed for being a “Michael Jackson impersonator.” He once had done Jackson impersonations on the subway before his decline into mental illness. On the night he died Neely was a loud, threatening disruptor with 42 prior arrests who posed a potentially deadly threat to other passengers.
Williams responded with the same quintessentially liberal argument the New York Times tried: The screwdrivers weren’t weapons, the young men, whom Williams admitted had “sometimes quite awful criminal records,” were just going to use the screwdrivers to steal money from an arcade! Williams added a race twist, naturally.
WILLIAMS: ….there was a rush to demonize the four young men….And as I said a moment ago, were just easy narratives for people to latch onto. Of course these four young black guys from the Bronx were armed and attacking a white man who was defenseless on the subway. Of course that is what happened. Because that is just an easy narrative for society to get its head around.
