American Notes

"You don't look so bad," said the gunman to one of the four youths who had accosted him. "Here's another." With those chilling words, New York City's acclaimed "subway vigilante" Bernhard Goetz fired another shot at Darrell Cabey, 19. Goetz had already wounded the young man's three friends, who lay bleeding on the floor of the subway car. When he saw Cabey with no blood on him, he decided to shoot again. These details of the Dec. 22 incident were made public last week in a report written by police in Concord, N.H., where Goetz surrendered last New Year's Eve after nine days on the lam. ^

In January, after reading the report and watching a video-taped interview Goetz gave to Concord detectives, a New York grand jury decided not to indict him on the four attempted-murder charges sought by the Manhattan D.A. The jury charged Goetz only with illegal weapons possession. At week's end Troy Canty, one of Goetz's victims, decided to testify against the gunman, without immunity from prosecution. His testimony could constitute "new information," which would be grounds for resubmitting the case to a second grand jury.