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By the time of that call, Bernhard Goetz, dubbed the Subway Vigilante, was already a national sensation. The police reported hundreds of calls praising the gunman--some lamenting his lack of accuracy. The New York tabloids engaged in a frenzied competition of hysterical headlines. Man-in-the-street interviews revealed blacks and whites enthusiastically supporting the gunman. The exuberant graffiti spray-painted on New York's East River Drive proclaimed POWER TO THE VIGILANTE. NEW YORK LOVES YA!
Goetz's four teenage victims proved to have numerous arrests among them. The police recovered three screwdrivers from the jackets of two of the victims. They were not so much weapons as tools of their trade: robbing video-game machines. Canty's brother, free-basing cocaine while talking to a New York Post reporter, said that Troy was high at the time of the shooting. Goetz told Friedman on the phone, "Those guys, I'm almost sure, are vicious, savage people." An attorney in the D.A.'s office confirmed Goetz's suspicions: "This was a rough bunch of kids." (In a bizarre twist, Ramseur was arrested last week for faking his own kidnaping, apparently to see how the police would react.)
On New Year's Eve, a very nervous man in a leather bombardier's jacket walked into the police station in Concord, N.H., and said that he was the fugitive wanted for the New York subway shootings. The policemen read Goetz his Miranda warning, telling him he did not have to talk if he preferred not to. He wanted to. For the next four hours, two of which were videotaped, Goetz unburdened himself. While he did not feel he had done anything wrong, Goetz said he had "acted like a cold-blooded savage." Several times he punctuated his account by remarking that all he wanted was privacy and that when he returned to New York, "they were going to wipe the floor with me." When two New York City detectives arrived to interview him, he became hostile. Emerging from the Concord station, Goetz was engulfed by the first of many hordes of reporters. "Vultures," he sneered.
In New York he was arraigned on charges of illegal gun possession and attempted murder. Bail was set at $50,000 (later reduced to $5,000), and he was put into protective custody at Riker's Island. The jail was deluged with calls by those offering money and support. Goetz softly declined. He raised his own bail, and returned to his apartment five days later.
On Jan. 25 a Manhattan grand jury decided that he had been justified in his use of force, and declined to indict him on any charges but illegal possession of weapons. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau was criticized for a lack of vigor in pressing for a homicide indictment and for his decision not to allow any of the youths to testify. Morgenthau, who is up for re-election this year, was accused of swaying with the breeze of public opinion. Morgenthau rationalized his decision not to allow any of the youths to testify by saying that he did not want to give them automatic immunity from any pending criminal charges. He suspected that such a guarantee might prejudice the jurors in favor of Goetz.