Bernhard Goetz - Incident

Incident

In the early afternoon of Saturday, December 22, 1984, four criminals from the The Bronx—Barry Allen, Troy Canty, and Darrell Cabey (all 19) and James Ramseur (18)—boarded a downtown No. 2 express train apparently on a mission to steal money from video arcade machines in Manhattan. When the train arrived at the 14th Street station in Manhattan, 15 to 20 other passengers remained with them in subway car 7657, the seventh car of the ten-car train.

At the 14th Street station, Goetz entered the car through the rearmost door, crossed the aisle and took a seat on the long bench across from the door. Canty was across the aisle from him, lying on the long bench just to the right of the door. Allen was seated to Canty's left, on the short seat on the other side of the door. Ramseur and Cabey were seated across from the door and to Goetz's right, on the short seat by the conductor's cab. According to Goetz's statement to the police, approximately ten seconds later Canty asked him, "How are you?" Goetz responded, "Fine". According to Goetz, the four men gave signals to each other, and shortly thereafter Canty and Barry Allen rose from their seats and moved over to the left of Goetz, blocking Goetz off from the other passengers in the car. By Goetz's account, Canty then said, "Give me five dollars". Canty and Ramseur testified at the criminal trial that they were panhandling, and had only requested the money, not demanded it. Cabey didn't testify and Allen took the fifth amendment.