Goetz acquittal: Open season on Blacks

Scan page 6

and JOHN PALMIERI "It's now open season on Black youths in New York City," says Assemblyman Al Vann of Brooklyn.

On June 16, Bernhard Goetz was cleared of attempted murder, assault, and recklessendangerment charges in the December 1984 subway shooting of four Black youths.

The jury was made up of nine whites, two Blacks, and one Hispanic. Six of the jurors had been victims of crimes, three of them in a subway. After announcing the verdict, the jury asked Goetz for his autograph.

Of the original 13-count indictment, Goetz was only found guilty of illegal possession of a gun. Though the sentence for illegal gun possession could range to up to seven years in prison, Goetz has no prior criminal record and in all likelihood will serve no time in jail. • Goetz was riding in a New York IRT subway train when he was approached by a young Black man who asked him for five dollars. Goetz responded, 'I've got five dollars for each of you." He then produced a gun and shot the youth and his three companions.

According to a statement Goetz gave soon afterwards, he walked over to Darryl Cabey, already wounded, and shot him again—paralyzing him and causing permanent brain damage.

Goetz's acquittal, coming on the heels of the recent Howard Beach gang-attack (in which Black construction worker Michael Griffith was beaten by a group of white teenagers and chased onto a freeway where he was struck and killed by an oncoming car) drives home the fact that Black people are fair game for violence.

The Goetz verdict serves to drive home the message that if a white person feels a Black person may possibly commit a crime, then he or she may take any action that seems fitting.

According to Goetz, he "knew they would rob him because of the shine in their eyes and the smiles on their faces"

"It was proven that Goetz did the shooting and went far beyond the realm of self-defense," said Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the NAACP. He continued, "If a white youth had been shot in similar circumstances by a Black man while the youth was prone and defenseless, what would have been the outcome then?"

The outcome, no doubt, would have been a cry for the death penalty.

The Rev. Al Sharpton called on Blacks to form citizens' patrols to safeguard the subways. "Now that you can do by law what Bernhard Goetz did, we feel we have to patrol on our own to protect ourselves."

The reaction to the Goetz verdict, both pro and con, indicates that street crime is an issue of genuine concern to working peopleespecially to Blacks and poor people, who are the most frequent victims. Homicide is the leading cause of death among Black males aged 15 to 24.

Poverty, per se, is not the sole cause of crime. The high numbers of "white collar" crimes can attest to that. Yet we cannot dis -miss the effects of discrimination, hunger, and despair-the elements of poverty-on crime.

Our energies must focus on eliminating these elements of social inequality which promote poverty and crime rather than calling for more jails, more police and more "Goetz-styled" vigilante killings to "deter" would-be thieves. DOWN WITH KRICH AFRICAN "PARTHEI STOP APPRESSION AN