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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: He saw a shine in his eyes and a smile

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Speaker 2: on his face and felt that he was being played with,

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Speaker 2: and because he's being played with like a cat and

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Speaker 2: mouse or whatever else, he needed to take action.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. We're talking about a very

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Speaker 1: famous case this week. In nineteen eighty four, Bernie Gets

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Speaker 1: shot four black teenagers on a subway in Manhattan. He

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Speaker 1: was hailed as a hero in the press, a man

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Speaker 1: who stopped would be robbers. But as the public learned

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Speaker 1: more about the evidence and about Gets himself, the stories

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Speaker 1: seem to shift. Elliott Williams is a CNN legal analyst

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Speaker 1: and former federal prosecutor, and he wrote a book about

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Speaker 1: the case called Five Bullets. The story of Bernie Gets

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Speaker 1: New York's explosive eighties and the subway vigilante trial that

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Speaker 1: divided the nation. Give me context for where we are,

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Speaker 1: what time period, and what is New York City like

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Speaker 1: in this time period.

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Speaker 2: No one can really comprehend today what nineteen eighties and

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventies New York really looked like. When we think

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Speaker 2: about Labradoodal New York, when we think about Lululemon and

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Speaker 2: Whole Foods New York, and Skyscraper New York and Tech

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Speaker 2: Company New York, it's very different than the nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 2: And the world of this book is a gritty, grimy

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Speaker 2: place that's just not the New York of our imagination.

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Speaker 2: Think about some of the films that came out of

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Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies about New York City, Death Wish, which

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Speaker 2: comes up a lot in my book Saturday Night Fever.

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Speaker 2: The Warriors Escape from New York are all about somewhat

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Speaker 2: of a healthscape where it's rough, it's dirty, it's overcome

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Speaker 2: with litter, the city faces rampant corruption scandals. The city

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Speaker 2: is broken, mismanaged and seeking bailouts from the federal government.

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Speaker 2: It's firing teachers and sanitation workers. In nineteen seventy seven,

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Speaker 2: there's a blackout, which happens in every municipality in America,

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Speaker 2: and I start the book Five Bullets with this. But

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Speaker 2: the blackout, unlike say the blackout in two thousand and

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Speaker 2: three that many listeners might be familiar with, where people

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Speaker 2: are outside doing the waltz on the street and rolling

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Speaker 2: out there their barbecues and having cookouts and cooking jerk

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Speaker 2: chicken and sipping mimosas it becomes the most vicious single

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Speaker 2: evening in New York City history. Literally, The New York Post,

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Speaker 2: I believe, our time magazine Pardon calls it twenty four

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Speaker 2: hours of terror, where arson, looting, homicide, assaults just take

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Speaker 2: the city over. And that's indicative of how rough New

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Speaker 2: York City was at the time. Homicide rate was I believe,

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Speaker 2: seventeen hundred a year, which is about four or five

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Speaker 2: times greater than it is now. So it's just a

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Speaker 2: different place and like nothing we've seen today.

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Speaker 1: I was in New York in two thousand and four.

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Speaker 1: I lived in New York off and on for about

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Speaker 1: ten years. In two thousand and four, I think, and

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Speaker 1: we had a blackout, and I was scared to death

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Speaker 1: because I had read all about the seventy seven blackout,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, it was pretty much the way you described.

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Speaker 1: I was in the East Village in Tompkins Square Park.

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Speaker 1: They were doing bongo drums. And what was nice about

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Speaker 1: the time period where I lived in New York was

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Speaker 1: when that happened. You have bodega's and they're passing out

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Speaker 1: free water because of course they have no electricity. And

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, people were really pulling together. And

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Speaker 1: of course this is post nine to eleven. So in

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Speaker 1: eighty four when your story is taking place, who is

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Speaker 1: in charge? I am mixed up between Dinkins or who's

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Speaker 1: the mayor at this time?

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Speaker 2: This is Coach, this is Kach, and this is Ed

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Speaker 2: Koch at his height, and he gets re elected in

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five. Really at his peak, he was New

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Speaker 2: York City had had a string of Look, everybody's a

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Speaker 2: Democrat for the most part, or a Republican who today

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Speaker 2: would be a Democrat. In John V. Lindsay, who was

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Speaker 2: mayor two mayors before, but the mayor I spoke about

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Speaker 2: the rampant corruption and problematic that was Abraham Beam, who

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Speaker 2: was the mayor before. Kach Koch gets elected really on

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Speaker 2: a law and order and sort of toughness platform, on

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Speaker 2: a centrist We are not safe. Public safety is a

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Speaker 2: big concern in the city. I represent you Brooklyn, part

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Speaker 2: of me, Brooklyn, parts of Brooklyn, but definitely Queens and

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Speaker 2: Staten Island and the sort of outer Borrows and the

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Speaker 2: working class ethnic whites. And really we're big fans of him.

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Speaker 2: Cotchin eighty five, So just after, really just after the

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Speaker 2: incident in my book, Cotchin eighty five gets elected and

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Speaker 2: I think the first mayor ever to get elected on

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Speaker 2: both the Democratic and Republican Party platforms and like seventy

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Speaker 2: five percent of the vote. So he's at his height,

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Speaker 2: and he's sort of the guy who, for better or

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Speaker 2: for worse, is credited in many ways for kind of

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Speaker 2: turning around or at least starting the turnaround of New

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Speaker 2: York City from the grit and the grime to the

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Speaker 2: you know, like I said, labradoodal New York. Now, if

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Speaker 2: anybody's read the book Gods of New York by Jonathan Maller,

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Speaker 2: which came out in twenty twenty five in the summer.

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Speaker 2: It sort of picks up where my book leaves off.

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Speaker 2: Where my book is about the grit and grime of

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Speaker 2: the late seventies into the early nineteen eighties, and one

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Speaker 2: emblematic incident that came from that. His about the rebirth

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Speaker 2: of New York from eighty six to nineteen ninety, and

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Speaker 2: you sort of some of the characters transfer from one

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Speaker 2: to another and sort of an interesting arc of a

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Speaker 2: city in crisis, which is really what my book was about.

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Speaker 1: Now, let's talk about the racial tensions, which I know

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Speaker 1: you know really play such a large part in your book.

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Speaker 1: Describe what this is like, Is this sort of segregation

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Speaker 1: situation in the city where you don't have people living

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Speaker 1: together as they might now or what really was it like?

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Speaker 2: It was rough? And something I refer to in the

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Speaker 2: book Five Bullets is this idea of there's a racial incident,

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Speaker 2: there's a protest and unrest. Al Sharpton shows up, the

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Speaker 2: mayor issues a statement calling for calm. It blows over

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Speaker 2: and then simmers underneath the surface until the next one

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Speaker 2: happens about a year later, and New York city through

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Speaker 2: starting in the late seventies deep into the frankly into

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Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties. I clocked it ATCHI probably about every

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Speaker 2: year year and a half there was some major above

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Speaker 2: the fold incident that galvanized and just sort of got

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Speaker 2: in the city's consciousness. Now, obviously there's Bernard Getzen. I

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Speaker 2: assume we're going to talk about that a little bit today,

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Speaker 2: the corusue in the book Five Bullets. But then in

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three, I believe Eleanor Bumpers is shot by

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Speaker 2: police officers in her home during an eviction with a

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Speaker 2: shotg They shoot her with a shotgun. She's being evicted,

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Speaker 2: but she's also a grandmother who's mentally ill and naked

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Speaker 2: as they kill her, and that causes a big polarization

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Speaker 2: in the city. There's Howard Beach and benson Hurst and

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Speaker 2: Crown Heights, and I throw them all out together because

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Speaker 2: even having grown up there, they all blur together. For me.

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Speaker 2: One of them is the guy who's looking for a

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Speaker 2: pontiac in a neighborhood in Brooklyn, in a white neighborhood

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Speaker 2: in Brooklyn, These white guys with baseball bats and guns

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Speaker 2: or screaming ethnic slurs at him, telling him to get

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Speaker 2: out because they thought he was there to meet white girls.

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Speaker 2: So they chase him, run him down. He ends up

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Speaker 2: getting hit by a cars he's crossing a highway. Another one,

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Speaker 2: same thing, crossing into the wrong side of town, chased

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Speaker 2: down and beaten to death by baseball bat wheeling white guys.

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Speaker 2: That Benson Hurston, Howard Beach. I just can't remember which

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Speaker 2: one was which Crown Heights was Lebovich. Jewish caravan runs

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Speaker 2: over a couple kids, two of them, one gets injured,

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Speaker 2: one dies, a boy named Gavin Cato, and that causes

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Speaker 2: a lot of black and Orthodox Jewish tension. And ultimately

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Speaker 2: that was a big one at the center. You saw

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Speaker 2: Al Sharpton at the center of it. I talk about

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Speaker 2: it quite a bit in the book. That got really

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Speaker 2: ugly because there was a lot of rioting and looting

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Speaker 2: of Jewish businesses in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Then you move

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Speaker 2: later into the nineteen eighties, you get the Central Park five,

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Speaker 2: which everybody knows about, which these five young men accused

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Speaker 2: of a horrific sexual assault ends up to be inaccurate.

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump, then just a real estate developer takes out

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Speaker 2: an ad in the New York Times calling for their

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Speaker 2: ex acution. There was Amadu Diallo, an immigrant, standing on

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Speaker 2: his porch holding a wallet that police shot him forty

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Speaker 2: one times. So anyway, all of this happens, and it's

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Speaker 2: literally every year from probably seventy seven, seventy eight to

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Speaker 2: up into the nineties, and they just kept happening, and

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Speaker 2: it was just simmering under the surface in a way

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Speaker 2: that we all internalize, I think as people from the area.

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Speaker 1: What was the safety like on the subway system in

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Speaker 1: the eighties, because you know, I lived in New York

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Speaker 1: starting I would say ninety seven until probably about you know,

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Speaker 1: two thousand and four, two thousand and five, and I

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Speaker 1: felt safe on the subways. Now, I was also not

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Speaker 1: somebody riding the subways at midnight. Yeah, and you know

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Speaker 1: I was living in Lower Manhattan. So what was it

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Speaker 1: like in the eighties? I suspect a little scary depending

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Speaker 1: on where you were.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and no doubt. And I was in the

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Speaker 2: city because I was in law school at that time

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Speaker 2: in the city from ninety eight to two really, and

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Speaker 2: so at the same time, the subway was not bad

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Speaker 2: at that point. It was not. And by then the

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Speaker 2: cars had started getting modernized and so on, so it

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Speaker 2: was just a different experience. The subway was rough, and

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Speaker 2: something I talk about a fair amount in the book

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Speaker 2: is the amount of crime that took place in the

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Speaker 2: subway also was at an all time high, where you're

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Speaker 2: talking about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of assaults, snatches

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Speaker 2: and grabs, whatever the grammatical plural would be. But the

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Speaker 2: assaults not many homicides or serious serious assaults, but bad ones,

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Speaker 2: really horrible things that made daily life exceptionally difficult for people.

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Speaker 2: Now another one, and I'm not going to come out

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Speaker 2: here embracing the broken windows theory of policing, which is

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Speaker 2: that brit and grime and roughness make people commit worse crimes. Right,

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Speaker 2: That was the whole thing with Giuliani in the nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 2: But New York City's subways were dirty. They were a

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Speaker 2: place that people through their trash, people went to the bathroom,

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Speaker 2: they were all and I talk about this in the book.

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Speaker 2: Every subway car in nineteen whatever year, every single one,

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Speaker 2: every single inch of every single one was covered in graffiti.

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Speaker 2: And it became a contest among graffiti artists who have

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Speaker 2: tagged at least one subway car in every one of

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Speaker 2: the five boroughs, and they were called kings. You became

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Speaker 2: a king if you tagged up graffiti in every one

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Speaker 2: of the burrows of the city. Now again you look

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Speaker 2: at them now and their relics. In many ways, they're

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Speaker 2: almost beautiful and there if you were to wash one

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Speaker 2: down and just see the graffiti covering them, it's a

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Speaker 2: fascinating artistic group of compositions. That said, it is all

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Speaker 2: indicative of how rough the subway was. Signs didn't work,

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Speaker 2: maps didn't work, windows were broken. Trains were constantly breaking

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Speaker 2: down and on fire and derailing at a rate far

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Speaker 2: more than any subway system we could think of today. Now,

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Speaker 2: obviously you hear about sometimes fires or derail the unhappy.

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Speaker 2: It's a cost of machinery in our world. But it

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Speaker 2: was really bad, and people relied on the subway. They

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Speaker 2: needed it. It is the best way to get around

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Speaker 2: New York City. But it was rough.

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Speaker 1: What about the transit police? Were they understaffed? I can't

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Speaker 1: imagine they weren't. Aren't they always?

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Speaker 2: Oh, horribly horribly understaffed, horribly understaffed and also not fully

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Speaker 2: And I say this having worked in law enforcement for

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Speaker 2: quite some time before being a journalist. They were never

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Speaker 2: fully syncd up with the NYPD, and so their radios

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Speaker 2: were on different frequencies, for instance. And so you would

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Speaker 2: have a major incident underground and both NYPD and New

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Speaker 2: York Transit cops were working on it, but they couldn't

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Speaker 2: talk to each other over their walkie talkie. So that's

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Speaker 2: just the incompetence of eighties New York that set some

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Speaker 2: of the scene here.

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Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and get into the crux of the book.

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Speaker 1: Is the incident that happened that sparked all of this.

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Speaker 1: Tell me about the day that it happened. And let's

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Speaker 1: start with the victims, who were the four teenage the

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Speaker 1: four black teenage who were on the subway when they

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Speaker 1: encounter burning gets that day.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so there's four eighteen and nineteen year old young men.

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Speaker 2: They live in a housing project called Claremont Village. It's

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Speaker 2: regarded as a heralded facility, if you want to call

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Speaker 2: it that, but a heralded concept in public housing where

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Speaker 2: they combined all of these edifices under one major, massive,

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Speaker 2: sprawling complex. It's really now the size literally of a

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Speaker 2: small college campus. It's I think it was thirty thousand residents,

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Speaker 2: although up to seventy thousand lived in it because people had,

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Speaker 2: you know, would multi generational families and friends living together

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Speaker 2: and so on. So it was this crowded, big housing project.

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Speaker 2: And to be clear, you know, we were talking about

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Speaker 2: safety a bit. The projects in the early nineteen eighties

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Speaker 2: were quite safe for people who lived there. It wasn't

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Speaker 2: until the introduction of crack cocaine in nineteen eighty five

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Speaker 2: to New York City that really made that the projects

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Speaker 2: what we think of today as this place of crime

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Speaker 2: and grit and so on. It pushed a lot of

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Speaker 2: the crime into the housing projects. So these four guys

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Speaker 2: live relatively, I don't want to say, not cloistered, but

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Speaker 2: they had family lives Daryl Caby, Barry Allen, Troy Knty,

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Speaker 2: and James Ramsur. Darryl Caby is the most interesting story,

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Speaker 2: or the most sort of heart wrenching story of all

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Speaker 2: the people. He grew up with his mother, Shirley. He

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Speaker 2: lived with her and a bunch of siblings in the house. Well,

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Speaker 2: his dad wasn't around because his dad was a taxi

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Speaker 2: driver who'd gotten run over by his own cab because

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Speaker 2: he was fighting off a carjacker, which might be the

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Speaker 2: most single nineteen eighties Claremont Village, Bronx, New York story

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Speaker 2: of all the others. They'd known each other, they'd engaged

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Speaker 2: in some crimes together, but really they were young men

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Speaker 2: in and around the projects, so they'd interacted together and

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Speaker 2: committed some crimes together. The big one that they where

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Speaker 2: they knew each other from was a common crime from

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Speaker 2: young men of that time, and it was breaking open

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Speaker 2: video game machines downtown. So fun bit of history. Right

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Speaker 2: around nineteen eighty or so, the video game Space Invaders

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Speaker 2: is invented, is it comes out and creates a boom

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Speaker 2: in video arcades across the United States. Well, because there

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Speaker 2: was all this this new concept of video game machines

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Speaker 2: became really widespread in businesses like bars and bodegas that

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Speaker 2: took a lot of cash. Well, the problem is that

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Speaker 2: a video game machine, if you ever looked at one,

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Speaker 2: was a giant piggy bank. It can hold hundreds, if

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Speaker 2: not thousands, of dollars at a time. Well, the guys were

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Speaker 2: going downtown to break open video game machines. It was

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Speaker 2: a common crime. It just is what everybody did. You

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Speaker 2: just get a screwdriver. Pop it open. One guy pretends

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Speaker 2: to play the game while other guys pop it open.

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Speaker 2: You just grab the quarters and run away. Well, they

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Speaker 2: were on the subway. They had a couple screwdrivers on them.

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Speaker 2: Pay attention there. And we're on the subway heading downtown

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Speaker 2: to Pace University in Lower Manhattan to break video game machines.

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Speaker 2: And they get on this train around midday. They're goofing around.

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Speaker 2: They're causing noise, they're doing pull ups on the bars,

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Speaker 2: they're shadow boxing, and they're also going around to different

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Speaker 2: people on the train asking for cigarettes and matches and

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Speaker 2: causing certainly a disturbance. Now some of the people think, eh,

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Speaker 2: I don't I'm not crazy about how these guys are behaving.

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Speaker 2: But and maybe even some even got up to move.

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Speaker 2: But no one was directly threatened by them or injured

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Speaker 2: by them.

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Speaker 1: So these guys are sort of troublemakers. No violence in

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Speaker 1: their history that you know of.

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Speaker 2: Oh, it's definitely violence in their history. No violence on

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Speaker 2: this train, like they certainly two of them, and I

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Speaker 2: want to say Ramser and one other I want to

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Speaker 2: say Canty or KB had gotten They knew each other

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Speaker 2: through a fist fight, through their buddies, like one of

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Speaker 2: them had gotten like I think, and forgive me it's

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Speaker 2: I think it was Kanty's brother fights Ramser's friend fights Ramster,

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Speaker 2: and they knew each other, so they're not tight. But

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Speaker 2: they all had and let's be clear, they had copious

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Speaker 2: criminal histories. Rams gets really bad in the future, however,

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Speaker 2: it's a lot of the thefts and the robberies, and

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Speaker 2: stealing from Macy's and stealing from kids, stealing from charities,

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Speaker 2: a lot of stealing. It's a lot of stealing. And

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Speaker 2: all four had at some point in varying degrees, had

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Speaker 2: issues with cocaine. Crack, as I've mentioned, doesn't really hit

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Speaker 2: the projects in New York until nineteen eighty five, but

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Speaker 2: one of them had starts smoking marijuana at age thirteen

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Speaker 2: and then tries cocaine certainly through his teen years. So

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Speaker 2: they all are reflective as much of society's failures as

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Speaker 2: their own and their tragic stories, no matter how you

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Speaker 2: look at it. But to be clear, they all had

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Speaker 2: criminal records, and a couple of them were pending on

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Speaker 2: warrants at the time they were on the train.

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Speaker 1: So on this train, what burrow are we in? And

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Speaker 1: how many people are we talking about in this one carriage.

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Speaker 2: They start in the Bronx and it's a train that

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Speaker 2: starts up if folks know the geography of New York City,

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Speaker 2: it starts in the Bronx, head south through Manhattan, then

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Speaker 2: makes the left turn into Brooklyn and goes deep into

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Speaker 2: Brooklyn on the train car. By the time the incident

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Speaker 2: goes down, there's about two dozen a dozen to two

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Speaker 2: dozen people fifteen twenty and no one ever had a

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Speaker 2: clear count. But it's not an empty car, but it's

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Speaker 2: not a packed one, okay.

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Speaker 1: And you know this is people standing and sitting and

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Speaker 1: all of that. And these guys, these four guys are

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Speaker 1: just sort of as a group, just not harassing necessarily,

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Speaker 1: but just causing an uproar. And I'm certainly making people

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Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable.

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Speaker 2: Certainly making people feel uncomfortable. And that is the important

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Speaker 2: takeaway before we get to burn ourd gets who gets

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Speaker 2: on the train a little bit later in the West

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Speaker 2: Village in southern Manhattan, people were uncomfortable. Now a few

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Speaker 2: of the band and I spoke to one of the

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Speaker 2: passengers still alive, and he said, look, I've ridden the

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Speaker 2: subway a lot before, I've seen these kinds of guys around.

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Speaker 2: I'm not crazy about their behavior, but this is just

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Speaker 2: part of a cost of life in a big city.

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Speaker 2: You're going to find young guys who are goofing off

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Speaker 2: on a train, maybe even threatening people. But everyone's in agreement.

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Speaker 2: They did not harm anyone on the train. They were

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Speaker 2: certainly causing a, let's say, a nuisance, but didn't pull

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Speaker 2: one of the screwdrivers out or try to fight with

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Speaker 2: anybody or anything like that.

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Speaker 1: That's what I was going to ask, because you hinted

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Speaker 1: at the screwdrivers, so they're not pulling these out in

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Speaker 1: any way at least. Okay, no, no, So we have

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Speaker 1: then Bernard Getz getting on the train. You said in

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Speaker 1: the west village. Tell me about his background. How old

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Speaker 1: he is, you know all of that stuff. Electrical engineer,

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Speaker 1: is that right?

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Speaker 2: Electrical engineer and a very very bright one. He'd gone

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Speaker 2: to NYU, so he'd grown up relatively privileged in Westchester County,

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Speaker 2: starts in Queens, grows up in Westchester County, New York,

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Speaker 2: which is just north of the city, just above Bronx,

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Speaker 2: and privileged. His dad was, i want to say, in

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Speaker 2: the same line of work in engineering, and so on.

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Speaker 2: I think the galvanizing There were a few galvanizing moments

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Speaker 2: in Bernard Gets his life, and I think all identify

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Speaker 2: two of them. One is when he is a early

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Speaker 2: teenage his father gets arrested and accused for sexually assaulting

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Speaker 2: a few teenagers. These two boys who are regarded as

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Speaker 2: troublemakers in town. Now, the Gets family regarded it as

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Speaker 2: singling out their wealthy father and politically connected father, that

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Speaker 2: that opponents of Dad had really turned on Dad and

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Speaker 2: wanted to embarrass him. So he ultimately sends up spending

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Speaker 2: some time in jail over this result. Now, this is

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Speaker 2: one of the moments that begins Bernard Gets his total

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Speaker 2: lack of disillusionment with the criminal justice system. He regards

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Speaker 2: throughout life, including my interview with him, he regards criminal

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Speaker 2: justice system as not focused on keeping people safe, being

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Speaker 2: rife with bias, and ultimately a place where criminals get

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Speaker 2: coddled and game the system out. And it turned him off.

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Speaker 2: So that big moment happens. Number one. Number two, he's

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Speaker 2: actually mugged nineteen eighty one. He's carrying a bunch of

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Speaker 2: engineering equipment on the subway. Once again, rough stuff in

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Speaker 2: the early nineteen eighties, but he's carrying a bunch of

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Speaker 2: electrical equipment. Three young black dudes jumped him for his

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Speaker 2: sheepskin jacket. They jump him, start pounding on him. Two

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Speaker 2: of them get away. The cops grab one of them,

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Speaker 2: and gets completely disillusioned with the system there too, saying

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Speaker 2: that why are the cops so focused on protecting this guy?

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Speaker 2: Why did they only question him for two hours and

390
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Speaker 2: me for six hours? All they care about is this guy.

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Speaker 2: I'm the one who's the victim here. Why is this

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Speaker 2: guy not going to jail? The kid just gets charged

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Speaker 2: with criminal mischief I believe, not assault or anything over

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Speaker 2: the fight that they get into. So for all these reasons,

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Speaker 2: at a certain point, Bernie gets starts carrying firearms, and

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Speaker 2: he vowed after that assault at Mugging to never get

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Speaker 2: victimized again. He was going to start carrying firearms, and

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Speaker 2: so over the course of a pretty long period, he

399
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Speaker 2: starts amassing a bunch of different firearms, handguns, some legally,

400
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Speaker 2: many of them, not selling them and giving them to

401
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Speaker 2: other people. He buys one on the day of his

402
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:10,439
Speaker 2: father's funeral when he's down in Florida. So he's just

403
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Speaker 2: a big gun owner and starts carrying one with him

404
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Speaker 2: wherever he goes, has a quick draw holster, has his

405
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Speaker 2: belt buckled to the side so that he can get

406
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Speaker 2: to his gun quickly. He doesn't wear gloves in public anymore,

407
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Speaker 2: and he's just ready in case trouble comes along.

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Speaker 1: What are the concealed weapon laws like in New York

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Speaker 1: in this time period?

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Speaker 2: New York as now certainly had very restrictive gun rules,

411
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Speaker 2: and there were people who could get concealed carry permits.

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Speaker 2: Eleanor Roosevelt fun Fact was a big handgun carrier and possessor,

413
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Speaker 2: but not in order to get a license to carry

414
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Speaker 2: a firearm in New York, you really had to have

415
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Speaker 2: some demonstrated need for it. Now, rich people can make

416
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Speaker 2: a demonstrat need for anything, but you needed to have

417
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Speaker 2: some demonstrated need. And simply I walk around a lot

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Speaker 2: with expensive electrical equipment is not and was not seen

419
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Speaker 2: as a sufficient need, and so they would just deny

420
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Speaker 2: them mostly. And part of what turns gets off is

421
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Speaker 2: he applies for a license and they deny it on

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Speaker 2: that basis you don't have a specialized need for it.

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Speaker 1: So he's doing this illegal? Is that right?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah? I mean he had I don't know offhand

425
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Speaker 2: if any of his guns were procured lawfully, but he

426
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Speaker 2: certainly had a lot of illegal firearms, handguns, not long guns.

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Speaker 1: So I think I have a handle on the four

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Speaker 1: guys who ended up being the victims. But tell me

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Speaker 1: about gets his personality and you know, his current family

430
00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: life when all of this stuff happens. Is he still

431
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 1: wealthy from his dad's side.

432
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:43,880
Speaker 2: It's hard to say. I don't know if he's wealthy

433
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:47,920
Speaker 2: at the time, but he's certainly comfortable doing electrical engineering

434
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:53,159
Speaker 2: work around the city. Now. Everybody throughout time has commented

435
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:59,359
Speaker 2: on Bernard Getz's timidity and nerdiness, his paralegal eventual paralegal.

436
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,560
Speaker 2: When Day said he's a nerdy pocket protector kind of guy,

437
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 2: for Batim is what she called him.

438
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:06,640
Speaker 1: I haven't heard pocket protector in a very long time,

439
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:08,560
Speaker 1: so that's that's a phrase out of the past.

440
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:13,159
Speaker 2: I know, right, bespectacled, thin, blonde guy wearing glasses. He

441
00:24:13,240 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 2: sort of walks with a hunch, he sort of stooped

442
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 2: over his skinny, he's tall. But the thing that riled

443
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:24,159
Speaker 2: him up was public safety. It was throughout his time

444
00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 2: he just felt that the city wasn't doing enough to

445
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:34,359
Speaker 2: keep people safe. He just felt that it's fat cats

446
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 2: in New York, up in Gracie mansion or whatever that

447
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 2: don't care about public safety. And he would constantly be

448
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 2: peppering his neighbors and the doorman and everybody with petitions

449
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 2: and and why can't we get the streets cleaned up?

450
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,880
Speaker 2: In all of the above, and it was really a thing.

451
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 2: So that's one, just public safety was the thing that

452
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 2: riled him up more than anything else. In two, he's

453
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:00,439
Speaker 2: just all over the place. People regard to him as

454
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:02,399
Speaker 2: I didn't know if this guy was as sicky or not,

455
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 2: which is what one of the people said about him.

456
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:07,640
Speaker 2: He was just hyperkinetic and hands clenched and darting from

457
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 2: different topics. And someone would say hello to you one

458
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 2: day and be warm to you and your kids, and

459
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:14,680
Speaker 2: then make eye contact with you several hours later and

460
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:17,720
Speaker 2: not not even say hello. Just odd. And they every

461
00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:22,440
Speaker 2: single person throughout time seems to comment on his oddness

462
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:25,480
Speaker 2: as a human. He had been married briefly for about

463
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:29,040
Speaker 2: five years back in the early nineteen seventies. Nineteen seventy one.

464
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 2: He gets married but doesn't have kids and at the

465
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 2: time was single.

466
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:35,120
Speaker 1: Okay, he steps on the train this afternoon. How long

467
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:37,199
Speaker 1: do we know that the guys have been on the

468
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: train kind of being hooligans before they encounter Bernard gets.

469
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's about thirty minutes from where they get

470
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 2: on in the South Bronx to the West Village fourteenth

471
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:51,479
Speaker 2: Street where gets gets on. So it's about thirty minutes

472
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 2: and they're gooping around on the train. In the seventh

473
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 2: car of the train, doors open up. Bernard gets walks in.

474
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, what line is this just out of cre

475
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 1: is it a I can't remember.

476
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:05,399
Speaker 2: It's the two. It's a downtown two Express. Yeah, so

477
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 2: the so the stops would be right there, So it

478
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:11,640
Speaker 2: would be thirty fourth Street, which is Harold Square which

479
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 2: where Macy's is and Penn Station and Madison Square Garden.

480
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,400
Speaker 2: Then fourteenth Street, which is the West Village basically NYU

481
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:20,399
Speaker 2: where that's where gets gets on.

482
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: Okay, so he gets on what a witnesses say, because

483
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 1: you have I think what a couple doesen' Is that

484
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: what you said, witnesses?

485
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:30,440
Speaker 2: I mean that that's probably that's probably a liberal estimate,

486
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 2: probably about twenty Okay, Yeah, so they again they're commenting

487
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 2: on the guys No one really notices Bernard gets get on.

488
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 2: He just immediately gets on and sits down. In fact,

489
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 2: some witnesses weren't sure if he got on at fourteenth

490
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 2: Street or a few stops before at ninety sixth Street.

491
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 2: They just weren't sure. But he gets on and sits down,

492
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,360
Speaker 2: and immediately Troy Canty, one of the four young men,

493
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 2: approached him.

494
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: So what do you think made Bernard gets somebody that

495
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,159
Speaker 1: this guy thought would be approachable or were they just

496
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 1: approaching everybody?

497
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 2: That's the million dollar question of many million dollar questions,

498
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 2: Kate about this entire case. What was it about Bernard

499
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 2: gets Now again, I said, he's meek, he's timid, he's frail,

500
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 2: he's a white guy, he's feeble. Maybe that's it right

501
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 2: the Canty and the testimony later comes out, Oh, he

502
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 2: was just there. He was just the guy who was there,

503
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:23,880
Speaker 2: and he walked on. We were up there. He enters

504
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 2: at the north side of the train where the guys

505
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:28,119
Speaker 2: are hanging out, and that's why Canty approached him. That

506
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 2: at least that's his theory. Now it doesn't strain common sense. Say, look,

507
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 2: this guy looks pretty feeble. Let's go up to the

508
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 2: feeble guy and see if we can mess with him

509
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:38,199
Speaker 2: a little bit. But it's just not clear what it

510
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 2: was about Bernard gets Now. To be clear, they'd approached

511
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 2: a lot of people on the train. They had encounters

512
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:47,679
Speaker 2: that were probably not that different from the encounter they

513
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 2: had with Bernard Gets, which was walk up to them

514
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:51,719
Speaker 2: and ask him for money.

515
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: So they just said, hey, buddy, can I have five bucks?

516
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:56,919
Speaker 1: Give me five bucks? How does the convo go after that?

517
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 1: I mean, what does he do?

518
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 2: Well, there's not much convo after that because the guy

519
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,879
Speaker 2: comes out. But even the second thing, this is the

520
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 2: second great mystery, what does Troy Kanty say to Bernard

521
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 2: gets Now? And you really touch on this well, k

522
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 2: because it remains a mystery forty one years later, which

523
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:17,119
Speaker 2: is does he say give me five dollars? Or hey, mister,

524
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 2: can I have five dollars? One of them is a demand,

525
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 2: one of them is a request for money. One of

526
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:28,360
Speaker 2: them's panhandling. And the guys all say that Kanty was panhandling.

527
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 2: They was just asking for money. Is that's money? Because

528
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 2: quite frankly, they're going downtown to play video games before

529
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 2: breaking the machines open. They needed some money and so

530
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 2: they just wanted some cash. Bernard Gets remains adamant that

531
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 2: those guys were specifically coming to rob him, to mug him,

532
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 2: and because of that fear, he felt empowered to act.

533
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: What about witnesses, somebody standing right there or sitting right

534
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 1: next to him, right.

535
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 2: No one really really knew exactly what had gone down.

536
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 2: One woman said, hey, look at that. She testifies this

537
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 2: later because she leans over to her husband, this is

538
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 2: the guy I interviewed. Hey, look at those four punks

539
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 2: bothering that man. Or look at those four punks bothering

540
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 2: that white man, one of those two things. That wasn't

541
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 2: clear whether she said that the memories and testimony conflicted,

542
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 2: but hey, look at those four punks bothering that man.

543
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 2: So at least one witness thought, wait a second, they're

544
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 2: sort of acting up around him, maybe they're attacking him.

545
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 2: But no one else, I believe, really saw the initial exchange,

546
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 2: or at least was so struck by it to think,

547
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 2: wait a second, what's happening up there at the north

548
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 2: end of the car.

549
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: But nobody Also, I know everybody's trying to mind their

550
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: own business as what I but nobody is picking up

551
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: on a feeling like Bernard Guests is being threatened. I mean,

552
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: you would just kind of get a vibe from I

553
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: think if these kids were really going to do that.

554
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 2: I think that's an excellent question, Kate. It's sort of

555
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 2: what's the vibe and are people really picking up that

556
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 2: something bad is about to go down? Part of what

557
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 2: undermines that point or that question is it just happened

558
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 2: so quickly. It's from the moment. From the moment Gets

559
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 2: walks in and sets down, it's probably a matter of

560
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 2: seconds before Kanty approaches him, and then the whole thing

561
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 2: just spiraled out of control very quickly.

562
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: So Gets doesn't even respond. He just pulls out a

563
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: gun and start shooting.

564
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 2: So he looks down. He thinks it's rude to make

565
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 2: eye contact and just just doesn't really respond. But he

566
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 2: felt that the mugging was going on, so he stood up,

567
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 2: reached into his jacket and knew he had his gun there.

568
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: What are people saying about the days before this? I mean,

569
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: is there any change in him? Was there an inciting incident?

570
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 1: There's nothing. He's just kind of the.

571
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 2: Weird guy, weird gadfly about New York who's really mad

572
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 2: about the drunks. And the beggars on the stoopid his

573
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 2: building in the West Village, and nothing really was different,

574
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 2: and particularly nothing was different, and that it was just

575
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 2: another day. He was just going out of the house

576
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 2: with a gun. He in two occasions, at least two occasions,

577
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 2: had pulled a gun on people, folks that were yelling

578
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 2: at him or barking at him or threatening him. One

579
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 2: guy like he was walking and Harlem gets off got

580
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 2: off the wrong on the train and is walking and

581
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 2: the guy came up behind him, and Guts just pulled

582
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 2: out his gun held it up and the guy freaked out,

583
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 2: turned white and ran away. Another one, he's in the

584
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 2: West Village, same thing. He's on sixth Avenue and a

585
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 2: young guy comes up behind him, white kid or I

586
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 2: don't know how old he was, but I'm going to

587
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 2: get you, and when I do, I'm gonna u MF.

588
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 2: I'm going to do this, and then to do that.

589
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 2: And then the same thing gets pulls out his gun

590
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 2: and just pulls it out and sticks it at him,

591
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 2: and same thing, and Guts felt almost empowered and excited

592
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,719
Speaker 2: when he saw the guy turn so scared and run

593
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 2: away like he knew he did. The one thing he

594
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 2: could do to sort of like clap back and frighten

595
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 2: this guy. And so those were the at least two

596
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 2: incidents that are documented of him having pulled a gun

597
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 2: out before, but he'd never really had any training. He

598
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 2: claimed that playing cowboys and Indians that as a kid

599
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 2: was what taught him how to use a gun, and

600
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 2: that's really his only meaningful training in the use of firearms.

601
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 1: It's a thirty eight, Is it right that he pulls

602
00:31:57,040 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 1: in It's.

603
00:31:57,360 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 2: A thirty eighth? Okay, thirty eight Smith and Wesson.

604
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: He pulls out eight and there are upwards of twenty

605
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:07,200
Speaker 1: people around in this car, and what is tell me

606
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: just kind of lay out the scene, what ends up happening,

607
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 1: and who gets shot first.

608
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he apparently Now again, a lot of these

609
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 2: things are in dispute in some way four decades later,

610
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 2: but generally, here's what we think happens. I'll give I'll

611
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 2: give all those five dollars to you, or I'll let

612
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 2: you have five dollars, pulls out his gun and immediately

613
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 2: shoots Canty in the chest, then turns and shoots both

614
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 2: Alan and Ram Surr, both of whom end up with

615
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 2: wounds in their back. Now it's an open question as

616
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 2: to are they running away, are they turning, are they flinching?

617
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 2: The train is lurching and going back and forth as

618
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 2: is going on, so no one really knows what really

619
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 2: happens here except somebody says that they were looks like

620
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 2: they were trying to get out climb through the walls

621
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 2: of the train, like they're in a slasher movie, and

622
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 2: so gets says I let them have it, and then

623
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 2: shoots them right, so boom, boom boom. Both end up

624
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 2: with wounds in their back or in their sides, suggesting

625
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 2: they're shot in the back. Then he goes to Darryl Kby,

626
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:10,720
Speaker 2: sees him maybe slumped in a chair or slumped in

627
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 2: a bench at the end, and either shoots him and

628
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 2: then says, you don't look so bad. Here's another and

629
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 2: then shoots him again, or fires a shot and maybe

630
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 2: says you don't look so bad. Here's another and then

631
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 2: shoots him again. That's again, it's inconclusive what he actually

632
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 2: says to him, although he seems to have acknowledged that

633
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 2: he said that you know, look so bad. Here's another,

634
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 2: shoots KB ends up shooting him in the chest. It

635
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 2: severs his spine right there in the moment, and then

636
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 2: that's it. Somewhere one of the panels on the side

637
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 2: of the train ends up with a bullet hole in it.

638
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 2: People don't quite know. This is why the inconclusive nature

639
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 2: of what happens to Daryl Kby at the end there.

640
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 2: Does he just fire a shot off that missus? Does

641
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 2: he then go up to KB and shoot him? Does

642
00:33:56,880 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 2: he say he don't look so bad? I mean, it's

643
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 2: just it's just open and memory faded about that. But

644
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 2: the general thing is it is believed that he delivers

645
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 2: that line looking into Darryl KB and shoots him. Now

646
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 2: a point I left out a second ago, And there's

647
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 2: an important one when he shoots Troy Canty like bang

648
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 2: right away, real quick. The first guy that says it

649
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 2: to him, he says, he is about to take his

650
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 2: keys out and gouge Troy Canty's eyes out. He was

651
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 2: so filled with rage that that's what he wanted to do,

652
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 2: but he saw fear in his eyes and backed off

653
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 2: of it. And eyes it's really interesting, you know, just

654
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 2: thinking this through. Eyes were such a powerful motivator in

655
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 2: all of this, because also Gets claims that before he

656
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 2: shot him he saw a shine in his eyes and

657
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 2: a smile on his face and felt that he was

658
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 2: being played with, And because he's being played with like

659
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,319
Speaker 2: a cat and mouse or whatever else, he needed to

660
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:55,760
Speaker 2: take action. So he just was looking at these men's

661
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 2: eyes and sort of judging what he saw as motivating

662
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 2: his decision to do open fire.

663
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of tiny, detailed questions. You said

664
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 1: that he gets on the train, he's quickly approached by

665
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 1: one of these guys, and his response is quick, so

666
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 1: you think this is all what's the estimation? As soon

667
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: as he steps on there just like thirty seconds.

668
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 2: For the many many listeners of this program in New

669
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:20,839
Speaker 2: York City who are familiar with it, the train's going

670
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 2: from Fourteenth Street to Chambers Street, which is really only

671
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 2: one express stop. Train never makes it to Chambers Street.

672
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 2: It's a short short ride before the train gets stopped.

673
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 2: When the emergency brake gets pulled, it's within a minute,

674
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 2: and ultimately it's unclear whether the shots are fired off.

675
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 2: Bang bang bang bang bang or bang bang bang bang.

676
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 2: You don't look so bad. Here's another bang. Needless to say,

677
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 2: he empties the firearm within three seconds four seconds of

678
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 2: opening five ten seconds of the first time he opens fire,

679
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,040
Speaker 2: and so it's an incredibly short amount of time.

680
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:01,600
Speaker 1: How can he be clear when he sits down, Troy

681
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:03,720
Speaker 1: comes over and says, you know, give me five dollars

682
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 1: or can I have five dollars? Whatever it is, and

683
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 1: he starts shooting. How can he be clear that the

684
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:12,879
Speaker 1: other three men are working with or even know Troy?

685
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 1: If it happens? Is he just shooting black men who

686
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 1: were standing nearby?

687
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 2: So somehow folks figured out that these guys were together.

688
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:22,280
Speaker 2: I guess they were who knows, but yeah, he shoots

689
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,760
Speaker 2: those four. One of the other passengers on the train

690
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:29,800
Speaker 2: wondered if is this a hate crime or a terrorist act?

691
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:32,280
Speaker 2: And is this man just walking around shooting black people?

692
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 2: So he literally grabs his baby and his wife and

693
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 2: runs because he's thinking, oh my god, he's coming after

694
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 2: us next because that was the pandemonium that broke out

695
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 2: in the car, just not knowing what was going to

696
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:43,719
Speaker 2: happen next.

697
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I have to think they're not in a

698
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: semicircle surrounding him.

699
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 2: I mean, they're on a train.

700
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: He's sitting down, and I'm just thinking, I mean, how

701
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: does he even know who to shoot? At this point,

702
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:55,760
Speaker 1: what about the not the main doors, but the doors

703
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:58,880
Speaker 1: between the cars. Are those both unlocked and opened? Like,

704
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 1: can people flee through into other cars?

705
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:04,360
Speaker 2: People can flee through into other cars, and some people

706
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 2: actually did. In fact, at least one person ran screaming

707
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,800
Speaker 2: into the car the next car, which is the sixth

708
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 2: car of the train. I only mentioned that it's the

709
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:17,200
Speaker 2: sixth because that's where the motorman sat, and at least

710
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 2: one of the passengers. A savvy train rider always sat

711
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 2: in the sixth or seventh car of the train, so

712
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 2: that if there were trouble on the train, at least

713
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:29,720
Speaker 2: there'd be an official set of eyes watching over people

714
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:33,399
Speaker 2: just expected crime or just badness or trouble. Gosh, yeah,

715
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 2: isn't that wild. It's a wild little detail. So, you know,

716
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 2: so at least one ran into the motorman's car screaming.

717
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:41,879
Speaker 2: And then and after the train stops, the motorman runs

718
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 2: into the seventh car say hey, what's going on here?

719
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 2: You know? We hear gunshots?

720
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:50,040
Speaker 1: So gets what he sits down as they approach Chamber Street.

721
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:53,359
Speaker 2: Well, he's nervous and start sitting down and standing up

722
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:55,400
Speaker 2: and sort of pacing around a little bit. He's silent,

723
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:58,720
Speaker 2: and many passengers in the train are commenting on his poise,

724
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 2: his calm, his sense of balance. He wasn't freaking out,

725
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 2: but he seemed nervous at that point. The cars stopped

726
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 2: the emergency break and the train's not moving anywhere. The

727
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 2: motorman comes in and says, hey, wait a second, are

728
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 2: you a police officer? And Gets says no, And he

729
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 2: says give me the gun, and Gets says, I don't

730
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 2: want to misquote it or make him say a statement

731
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 2: that he didn't make, but those guys were those guys

732
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 2: were bothering me, and I shot them. I think that's

733
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 2: like it's in any for the lawyers in the room.

734
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 2: It's it's a confession. What he gives. You don't have

735
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 2: to like it or not. But he ultimately confesses right there.

736
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:32,799
Speaker 2: He says, they were askling me, and I shot them.

737
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 2: So motorman asks for the gun, Gets, does not give

738
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:39,800
Speaker 2: it to him, and doesn't respond and walks away. He then,

739
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:44,719
Speaker 2: to your question, Kate goes through the doors between the

740
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 2: cars and jumps down onto the tracks and then runs away.

741
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 2: And so all those questions you had about where is

742
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 2: this between Chambers Street, it's relevant because he then gets

743
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 2: off the train and sprints to the Chambers Street stop,

744
00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 2: climbs up, climbs up to the you know, to the

745
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 2: platform above, takes the steps up hits Sixth Avenue or

746
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:06,319
Speaker 2: whatever broadway, and just starts running home. And as he's

747
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 2: running home, police cars are zipping by because word has

748
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 2: now gotten to the NYPD that wait a second, there

749
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 2: was a massive shooting on the number two train and

750
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 2: Bernard Guess is just walking by up sixth Avenue or

751
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:22,440
Speaker 2: whatever street he was on in New York seeing these

752
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 2: cars zip by. They were going to the carnage that

753
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 2: he left there.

754
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 1: Now, I remember you saying that there were frequently communication

755
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:33,359
Speaker 1: issues between transit police and NYPD above ground because their

756
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: radios weren't in sync. Was that the case here too?

757
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 1: Was there a significant delay?

758
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 2: No? No, no, because the NYPD got there very very quickly.

759
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 2: The problem is that their guy has gone and nobody

760
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 2: knows where he is. They literally don't know where he is.

761
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 2: And a fun little bit of policing fact is part

762
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:54,919
Speaker 2: of the reason why. You know, I've mentioned a couple

763
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 2: times that they pulled the emergency brake and the car

764
00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 2: stops right and the train stops. Well, they do that

765
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:03,839
Speaker 2: so that if there's a crime on board and they

766
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 2: need to arrest somebody, all that evidence and all the

767
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:09,720
Speaker 2: people are still there and police can deal with it easily.

768
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:13,920
Speaker 2: That's the thing that enabled Bernie gets his escape. Because

769
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 2: the train was stopped, he just could quickly jump off

770
00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 2: and run away. So he sprints and got away and

771
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 2: immediately got off that subway platform at Chamber Street, hops

772
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 2: in a cab back home and goes back to his house.

773
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 1: Tell me about the status of the four victims. So

774
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: the police come, ambulance comes, everybody gets off the train,

775
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:36,240
Speaker 1: The interview witnesses, and you still have these four guys.

776
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 1: What's happening with their health?

777
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 2: They're bleeding and fading in and out of consciousness. The

778
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 2: general consensus is that Troy Kanty, who's the first one

779
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 2: if you remember who approach gets he's in the worst shape,

780
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 2: that's the consensus, because he's shot in the chest and

781
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:52,279
Speaker 2: he's bleeding through a hole in his chest, and so

782
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 2: they're treating him. He's going into shock. Barry Allen is lucid.

783
00:40:57,239 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 2: But they're all kind of out of it and bleeding

784
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:03,279
Speaker 2: a lot, lot and in various places through the train.

785
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 2: Now I mentioned KB in the mid chest. He's certainly

786
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 2: paralyzed at this point, not feeling his legs, but all

787
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 2: of them. It's interesting. I've never been shot by a firearm,

788
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 2: but Barry Allen claims that he thought he was paralyzed

789
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:19,799
Speaker 2: as well. He claimed that he felt his arm when

790
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 2: the bullet goes in. He felt his arm sees up

791
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 2: and like he'd been shot with what he called a

792
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 2: paralyzer gun. So they're all in various states of shock

793
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 2: or confusion, eyes lolling and passing in and out.

794
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 1: Everybody survives, so all four.

795
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 2: Everybody survives except and everybody has varying degrees of serious injury.

796
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 2: Everybody goes into some form of surgery, some you know

797
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 2: Barry Allen. Still they leave the one of the bullets

798
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 2: in there, it's somewhere in his shoulder. One of them

799
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,920
Speaker 2: has a spleen removed. But they all get out in

800
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks, except Daryl Kaby, who again paralyzed.

801
00:41:55,960 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 2: And then after because of the paralysis, things start compounding

802
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:03,360
Speaker 2: in his body with his diaphragm. He had trouble breathing,

803
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 2: went into respiratory arrest maybe a week or two later.

804
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 2: So he's blacked out for I want to say it's

805
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:13,440
Speaker 2: around eight minutes, and then goes into a coma before

806
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 2: going you know, so he's blacked out, then goes into

807
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 2: a coma, doesn't wake up for two months, and at

808
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:19,920
Speaker 2: the time he wakes up, because of that time that

809
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 2: they're performing CPR and trying to resuscitate him, he's just

810
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 2: not getting oxygen to his brain and he ends up

811
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:29,399
Speaker 2: brain damaged quite severely. He ends up with at the time,

812
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 2: believed to be the intellectual capacity of about a nine

813
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,440
Speaker 2: year old. Couldn't tell you what day it was, couldn't

814
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:38,319
Speaker 2: tell you who the mayor was. So he the rest

815
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:41,480
Speaker 2: of them end up in pain and with gunshot wounds

816
00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 2: and out and bandaged up, but he ended up probably

817
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:44,320
Speaker 2: the worst shape.

818
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:47,240
Speaker 1: How do they truck down gets It's really wild.

819
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:51,480
Speaker 2: It's they couldn't figure out the guy. And at this

820
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:55,239
Speaker 2: point the city is a buzz this mysterious vigilante who

821
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 2: finally clapped back and stood up for us. But no end,

822
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 2: they're flooding the police tip line, not with ideas about

823
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:06,760
Speaker 2: the shooter, but with praise saying that, my god, somebody

824
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 2: finally stood up for us. Overwhelmingly to the mayor, to

825
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 2: the prosecutors and so on, so they're at an impasse. Finally,

826
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:17,359
Speaker 2: after a little while, the police, the NYPD's tip line,

827
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:19,400
Speaker 2: gets a tip about a man named Bernard Gets who

828
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:23,320
Speaker 2: lives in the West Village. That's it. And they knew

829
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 2: that they could check city records, and they knew that

830
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:31,280
Speaker 2: Bernard Gets, remember, had applied for a gun license. So yeah,

831
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 2: so they went back, found a photograph of Bernie Getz,

832
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:37,319
Speaker 2: went to the motorman and the train and said, do

833
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 2: you see this guy? Do you know who this is?

834
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 2: Motorman says, I didn't see nothing. I don't know nobody.

835
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 2: I don't know anything. I ain't touching this get away.

836
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:45,959
Speaker 2: Get off my train. So he didn't want he'd wanted

837
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:49,239
Speaker 2: no time for that smoke. Then they knew they were

838
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:53,360
Speaker 2: onto something, so figured out with the photograph and the address,

839
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:57,080
Speaker 2: they went to the apartment building that Gets lived in

840
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 2: and just put a note under his door saying, mister Getz,

841
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 2: this is the New York Police Department, please call us.

842
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:06,839
Speaker 2: And one of the door, one of the mailbox, maybe

843
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 2: one under the mat or something, and that was it.

844
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:12,399
Speaker 2: That was the steps they took. And then they just.

845
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 1: Waited, who's the DA this is Morganhaw.

846
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 2: This is Morgan Thaw.

847
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh well, because he was there for how long

848
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 1: was he there thirty years or something?

849
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, more than thirty It was much of the

850
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 2: great part of a generation, I think, the sixties into

851
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 2: the early two thousands.

852
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 1: Did you end up talking to somebody with the police

853
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 1: during that time period or to get the idea of

854
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 1: what was happening, you know, behind the scenes.

855
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:35,240
Speaker 2: The guy who came up with the idea for leaving

856
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 2: the note, I spoke to him, Jim Levison, who was

857
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:40,359
Speaker 2: the lead detective on the case, and I interviewed him,

858
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:42,960
Speaker 2: and he believes it wasn't a great piece of police

859
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 2: work at all. It's just sloppy. But they were out

860
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 2: of options. But they think that is the step they

861
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:52,719
Speaker 2: took that actually got them to figure out who and

862
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:53,759
Speaker 2: where Bernie gets was.

863
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:55,439
Speaker 1: So does he contact them?

864
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 2: He does, but now he disappeared. No one knows where

865
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 2: he is. He's not in his apartment, He's not anywhere,

866
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:02,920
Speaker 2: Remember I said, soon after the shooting, he went back home.

867
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:05,280
Speaker 2: He quickly grabbed a duffel bag, took off the windbreaker,

868
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:06,920
Speaker 2: took the gun, put into a duffel bag, goes and

869
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 2: rents a car and drives north out of the city

870
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 2: and ends up in New Hampshire, and he was just

871
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 2: hiding in the snows of New Hampshire. He buries the

872
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 2: parts of the gun, he burns his jacket, thinks he's

873
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:21,880
Speaker 2: going to freeze to death because he has no jacket

874
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 2: now because he's burned the one he had and is

875
00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 2: hiding in New Hampshire. He went up there, came back

876
00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 2: to New York, at which point he met with one

877
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:32,719
Speaker 2: of his neighbors who told him they left a note

878
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 2: for you, at which point he hands her a package,

879
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:38,439
Speaker 2: doesn't tell her what's in it, but says, this isn't

880
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 2: the gun that was used. Can you just hold onto

881
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 2: this for me for a little while, And then disappeared.

882
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 2: And then about a day later, in conquered New Hampshire,

883
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:49,279
Speaker 2: he walks into the police department shivering and says, I'm

884
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 2: the man they're looking for in New York. And so

885
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 2: Levison that detective really believes. He said to me, it

886
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:56,680
Speaker 2: was not a good piece of police work. I don't

887
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 2: think this was good detective work, but that's really all

888
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 2: I had. But he thinks that is the thing that

889
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:05,840
Speaker 2: spooked Bernie gets so much. They felt he had to

890
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 2: turn himself in.

891
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: But what is Morgenthal saying once he does turn himself in,

892
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:13,680
Speaker 1: what is the general attitude of the DA's office about

893
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:15,800
Speaker 1: what the heck do we do with this guy who

894
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:18,799
Speaker 1: shot so called vigilantes and put him all in the

895
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:22,319
Speaker 1: hospital but at the same time took off and it's

896
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: illegal and had an illegal gun.

897
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 2: He was torn, torn, torn because, like all prosecutors, knew

898
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 2: and felt there was a crime committed, a potential homicide,

899
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:34,279
Speaker 2: at least an attempted homicide, but it was a very

900
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 2: popular homicide in the city, and the victims were unsavory.

901
00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:41,799
Speaker 2: These were drug addicted black boys from the Bronx who

902
00:46:41,800 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 2: were muggers and shakedown artists and so on, and Morgan

903
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 2: Thha was torn about what to do. So they ultimately try,

904
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:51,279
Speaker 2: but in a ham fisted way. But they try to

905
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 2: indict Gets for murder, for attempted murder pardon and end

906
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,239
Speaker 2: up the grand jury doesn't even buy it. The grand

907
00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:01,720
Speaker 2: jury only indites him for gun possession. And nobody was happy.

908
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 2: Gets wasn't happy with being charged with gun possessions. Supporters

909
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 2: weren't happy, the police weren't happy. Nobody was happy with

910
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 2: that decision, but the prosecutors just didn't have a ton

911
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 2: of options with what to do.

912
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:15,359
Speaker 1: What is the media saying at this point, what is

913
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 1: the I'm thinking of it, like the Daily News, and

914
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:22,240
Speaker 1: what the different the different tabloids and what these headlines

915
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:22,719
Speaker 1: must be.

916
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Daily News, well it's really the New York Post.

917
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 2: Rupert Murdoch had just bought the New York Post and

918
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 2: shifted the coverage of the cities tabloids, using a lot

919
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 2: of the tactics he'd used in other markets. He'd been

920
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 2: buying up a lot of tabloids around the country and

921
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:39,839
Speaker 2: certainly in Australia, but just to frighten people. It was,

922
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 2: you know, the headlines where screams ignored, she's shot dead

923
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 2: and things in all these these giant capital letters, and

924
00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:50,480
Speaker 2: so they were. The Daily News and the New York

925
00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 2: Post were largely quite supportive of the shooter and driving

926
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:58,960
Speaker 2: some of the public sentiment, which in turn was pretty

927
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 2: turebo charged. Now it was. It was divisive. There were

928
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,800
Speaker 2: certainly many people who thought that this was racist open

929
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:08,280
Speaker 2: season on black people, but a lot of people were

930
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 2: lined up behind Bernard Gets and the papers reflected that.

931
00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:16,320
Speaker 1: At some point is there an investigation into his background.

932
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, we know about what happens with

933
00:48:18,400 --> 00:48:21,080
Speaker 1: his father and the mugging and all of that. Is

934
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:25,759
Speaker 1: there any sort of digging into maybe his viewpoints on

935
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:26,960
Speaker 1: people of other races.

936
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:31,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it over time, the world starts learning more

937
00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:34,719
Speaker 2: and more about Bernard Gets and about these four young men,

938
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:37,759
Speaker 2: and it just starts seeming, it starts blurring a little bit.

939
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 2: They realize how quirky and odd he is. They realize

940
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 2: about his firearm possession. They realize that he's gotten in

941
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:46,319
Speaker 2: trouble and kicked off his co op board for using

942
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 2: ethnic slurs and saying that we got to get the

943
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:51,480
Speaker 2: ends and the s's. You can speculate as to what

944
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:53,359
Speaker 2: those words are, but we've got to get the only

945
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 2: way to clean this neighborhood up is to get the

946
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 2: ends and the s's out of here. Well, everyone else

947
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:02,320
Speaker 2: in the co op board, this is okay. That's not cool.

948
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 2: Even you're not even saying the quiet part out loud.

949
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 2: You're just yelling. And he claims he was high on

950
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:11,560
Speaker 2: angel dust and weed that night and that he didn't

951
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:13,640
Speaker 2: really know what he was saying, but he was just

952
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 2: making a point that we need to clean the neighborhood up,

953
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 2: and the bad elements in the neighborhood are black and Hispanic.

954
00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:22,319
Speaker 2: And it all started trickling out over time, and eventually

955
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:25,880
Speaker 2: people started getting a less sunny or rosy idea of

956
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 2: who Bernard Getz was and what he stood for.

957
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:32,240
Speaker 1: Now, I mean, he is claiming self defense, I'm assuming right.

958
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:34,960
Speaker 2: Now, I say he is in New York law, not

959
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:38,400
Speaker 2: just self defense. It's New York law at the time

960
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 2: allowed lethal force to prevent an imminent violent crime, okay,

961
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 2: and that violent crime being a robbery or a mugging.

962
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:49,520
Speaker 2: And so because he felt that one was imminent, or

963
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 2: at least claim to feel that one was imminent, he

964
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 2: was able to use lethal force.

965
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:56,359
Speaker 1: Can you explain though, the other end of this, which

966
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 1: I kind of think about battered women and you know,

967
00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: women who kill well, I don't know why I connected

968
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 1: always to this, but the idea that the prosecutor will

969
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:09,319
Speaker 1: say she could have left any time. He had exit strategies, right,

970
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: he could have or he had exit options. He could

971
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 1: have gone to another car. There were other witnesses. Was

972
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:16,880
Speaker 1: there not a way for Morgan thought to look at

973
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:18,839
Speaker 1: this and say, yeah, but this was not a last

974
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 1: resort for you.

975
00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 2: The law in New York did not require retreat. It

976
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:27,440
Speaker 2: was in apprehension of an imminent mugging or robbery, one

977
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:31,200
Speaker 2: could use lethal force and full stop. This is what

978
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 2: the law allowed. Now, and you're touching on an important point,

979
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 2: this idea of duty to retreat, and different jurisdictions have

980
00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 2: different rules around the obligations someone has to retreat before

981
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:44,919
Speaker 2: trying to kill somebody. Here at the time, oddly enough,

982
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:47,480
Speaker 2: New York would have just let you. If you thought

983
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:50,279
Speaker 2: a violent crime was coming, you could you could try

984
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:51,840
Speaker 2: to kill the person who was coming at you.

985
00:50:51,880 --> 00:50:55,000
Speaker 1: Now, what is the case now if this happened today,

986
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 1: what would be the likely outcome if there were not

987
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 1: all of these political ramifications surrounding it.

988
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:03,839
Speaker 2: Forgive the lawyer speaking to you right now, But there

989
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 2: is an interesting New York State Court of Appeals case

990
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:12,360
Speaker 2: that set the law on this. It's called State versus Gets. Literally,

991
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 2: this story ends up changing the standard in New York law,

992
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:21,239
Speaker 2: and it's complicated. It's both subjective and objective. Do I

993
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:25,520
Speaker 2: feel threatened? Right? If I can say that I feel threatened,

994
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 2: and if people the jury ultimately believes that you feel threatened, Okay,

995
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:33,400
Speaker 2: that's bucket one. And separately, did I act in a

996
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:36,440
Speaker 2: way that I would expect a reasonable person to have

997
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 2: acted under the same circumstances. That's objective, right, So it's

998
00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 2: both what are my feelings, but also how do we

999
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:46,879
Speaker 2: expect other members of society to act in the same circumstance?

1000
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:49,040
Speaker 2: And if both of those things are true, then you

1001
00:51:49,120 --> 00:51:53,400
Speaker 2: will not be found guilty of having killed someone. Right.

1002
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:56,399
Speaker 2: This case set that law. It was complicated, no need

1003
00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:57,880
Speaker 2: to get into the weeds of the law that it

1004
00:51:57,920 --> 00:51:59,600
Speaker 2: goes all the way up to the highest court in

1005
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 2: the state New York, but ultimately sets that standard that

1006
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:04,759
Speaker 2: courts would first look at what the guy felt and

1007
00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:07,360
Speaker 2: was it genuine and real? Was it real fear that

1008
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:12,360
Speaker 2: he felt? And in acting with lethal force, would we

1009
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:15,839
Speaker 2: have expected an ordinary or reasonable person to have done

1010
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 2: the same thing?

1011
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:20,160
Speaker 1: How do you get into that though as an attorney

1012
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:23,080
Speaker 1: of being able to say, I don't you can't even

1013
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:25,400
Speaker 1: say definitively look at the look on his face from

1014
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 1: CCTV or the witness next to him said, you know

1015
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: his tone was this way or that way. I mean,

1016
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:33,840
Speaker 1: you can't lean totally onto that, right, This is apparently

1017
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:35,920
Speaker 1: what he was feeling, and he made a couple of

1018
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:38,280
Speaker 1: racist remarks you know, in the past.

1019
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:40,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, the racist remarks in

1020
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:42,920
Speaker 2: the past wouldn't come up in trial, probably in a

1021
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:45,520
Speaker 2: criminal trial, in a straight criminal trial. Now if it

1022
00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 2: were a hate crime trial or something, maybe that would

1023
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:51,239
Speaker 2: be relevant. But it's hard getting into someone's head, is

1024
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:54,880
Speaker 2: the and something for me as a CNN legal analyst,

1025
00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:57,239
Speaker 2: this is the thing that I find explaining on air

1026
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 2: the most, this idea of criminal intent being exceptionally hard

1027
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:06,240
Speaker 2: to prove, exceptionally hard to establish what was in someone's mind,

1028
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:11,040
Speaker 2: absent finding a manifesto or him screaming I'm going to

1029
00:53:11,120 --> 00:53:13,680
Speaker 2: kill you because you have threatened to mug me, and

1030
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:15,960
Speaker 2: I felt that I was an imminent apprehension of a

1031
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 2: mugg you know, absent that. It's really just trying to

1032
00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:22,360
Speaker 2: divine the circumstances. Now any jury, there are all juries

1033
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:25,239
Speaker 2: of peers who live in the neighborhood, and they were

1034
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:29,640
Speaker 2: probably going to bring whatever they thought of New York

1035
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:32,799
Speaker 2: City subways and quite frankly, young black kids from the

1036
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 2: Bronx into their views of what actually happened. In judging

1037
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:41,200
Speaker 2: what was right and wrong, it ends up getting to

1038
00:53:41,239 --> 00:53:43,920
Speaker 2: a grand jury. The first time, they only get him

1039
00:53:43,920 --> 00:53:46,839
Speaker 2: on gun possession. They go back a second time, two

1040
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:49,760
Speaker 2: of the four victims testified, and he ends up getting

1041
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:53,480
Speaker 2: charged with attempted murder, attempted assault, and gun possession.

1042
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:55,920
Speaker 1: Has the narrative in the media changed now that we

1043
00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:58,719
Speaker 1: find out that he's used the in word, and you know,

1044
00:53:58,840 --> 00:54:01,440
Speaker 1: I don't know what else gets dug up about his past.

1045
00:54:02,040 --> 00:54:04,440
Speaker 1: Is there at any point where they were the media

1046
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:07,920
Speaker 1: or whoever kind of says, oh okay, maybe there's more

1047
00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 1: to this than we thought it.

1048
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 2: Definitely the tone shifts a little bit. But in general,

1049
00:54:12,960 --> 00:54:16,279
Speaker 2: there is a widespread notion that the city, remember all

1050
00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:18,960
Speaker 2: that stuff we talked about blackouts and riots and looting

1051
00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:22,480
Speaker 2: and bailouts in the city and joblessness and fire tee,

1052
00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 2: all of that, that the city is a rough place

1053
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:30,120
Speaker 2: and someone needs to stand up within days. Remember we

1054
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 2: talked about the movie Death Wish a little bit earlier,

1055
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:35,719
Speaker 2: the Death Wish Vigilante. That's the nickname he got. The

1056
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:38,520
Speaker 2: New York Post called him the Death Wish Vigilante in

1057
00:54:38,520 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 2: the mold of Charles Bronson and the movie Death Wish,

1058
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 2: that there's this guy who is going to clap back

1059
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 2: against the forces of disorder, and he's doing it for

1060
00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:50,840
Speaker 2: our common good. So yes, it got more nuanced overtime.

1061
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:54,880
Speaker 2: There were certainly commentators who were not so on board

1062
00:54:55,280 --> 00:54:59,320
Speaker 2: with gets and the narrative. Jimmy Breslin, a very famous

1063
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:03,319
Speaker 2: long time columns of the Daily News. Earl Caldwell was

1064
00:55:03,360 --> 00:55:05,759
Speaker 2: another one, Less Pain, who has ended up being the

1065
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:08,560
Speaker 2: head of the National Association of Black Journalists. They all

1066
00:55:08,719 --> 00:55:10,719
Speaker 2: took some issue with it, but for the most part

1067
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:15,360
Speaker 2: there was a pretty universal rush to support Bernard Getz.

1068
00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:19,120
Speaker 1: So if they had not had screwdrivers in their jackets,

1069
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:21,400
Speaker 1: would this have changed the case? I mean, I assume

1070
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:23,640
Speaker 1: that's what was brought up by the defense it.

1071
00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:27,120
Speaker 2: Was and the screwdrivers. You know, it's interesting a number

1072
00:55:27,160 --> 00:55:29,759
Speaker 2: of newspapers right off the back comment on the screwdrivers

1073
00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:32,399
Speaker 2: saying that the men were armed, including The New York

1074
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:35,399
Speaker 2: Times right off the bat, so that the men were armed.

1075
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:38,960
Speaker 2: That narrative shifted over time. Get still points at that,

1076
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:41,360
Speaker 2: saying that, look, they were armed, they were armed, they

1077
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:44,440
Speaker 2: had screwdrivers and so on. I don't I think irrespective

1078
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:47,000
Speaker 2: of the screwdrivers, I just think the narrative would would

1079
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:49,000
Speaker 2: have still been the same. It was just too easy

1080
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:53,680
Speaker 2: to not to have, you know, timid, weak white guy

1081
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:56,319
Speaker 2: scared of being or tired of being bullied and pushed

1082
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:59,239
Speaker 2: around for his entire life, and black dudes from the

1083
00:55:59,239 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 2: Bronx who were rorizing this train car. It just it

1084
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:07,200
Speaker 2: was the narrative took hold within within hours literally, and

1085
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:09,280
Speaker 2: it was just it was never going going back.

1086
00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:11,239
Speaker 1: Well, I think I know the answer to this, But

1087
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:13,879
Speaker 1: tell me ultimately what happens with this case with these

1088
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:14,720
Speaker 1: two guys.

1089
00:56:15,040 --> 00:56:17,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he ends up gets ends up getting acquitted

1090
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:21,880
Speaker 2: of violent of all the violent crime charges, assault, attempted

1091
00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:24,680
Speaker 2: murder and so on. He's so he ends up getting acquitted.

1092
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:28,440
Speaker 2: He ends up getting convicted of gun possession, of just

1093
00:56:28,520 --> 00:56:31,800
Speaker 2: the possession of the illegal gun and actually acquitted. Remember

1094
00:56:31,840 --> 00:56:34,440
Speaker 2: I told you he hands his neighbor of package. He

1095
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:37,360
Speaker 2: was charged with illegal possession of those guns, the guns

1096
00:56:37,400 --> 00:56:40,279
Speaker 2: that were in that bag. He got acquitted of that too.

1097
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:44,560
Speaker 2: They did not convict him of even possessing those guns

1098
00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:47,320
Speaker 2: that were widely known to have been given to a neighbor.

1099
00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:51,799
Speaker 2: They felt that the neighbor who was actually Janis Joplin's publicist.

1100
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:55,360
Speaker 2: Oddly enough, she'd written a whole. She'd sold her story

1101
00:56:55,400 --> 00:56:59,399
Speaker 2: to New York magazine, and they saw her as capitalizing

1102
00:56:59,440 --> 00:57:02,440
Speaker 2: on the tragedy. He's such that she might have lied

1103
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:04,799
Speaker 2: about receiving this package in the first place, and they

1104
00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:06,759
Speaker 2: just didn't trust They didn't trust her testimony, and so

1105
00:57:08,120 --> 00:57:09,960
Speaker 2: he's equitted of those So he ends up spending eight

1106
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:13,920
Speaker 2: months in jail just on that illegal gun possession charge.

1107
00:57:14,040 --> 00:57:15,960
Speaker 2: It was pretty much now that the interesting thing about

1108
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:18,560
Speaker 2: jail is that quickly they figure out that he's an engineer,

1109
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:23,040
Speaker 2: at which point he ends up making money as the

1110
00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:27,400
Speaker 2: helping repair New York City bus radios while he's in prison,

1111
00:57:27,520 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 2: and he's making he makes like forty nine cents a day,

1112
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:33,520
Speaker 2: and he's just they knew this guy's an engineer, We're

1113
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:35,440
Speaker 2: going to put him to work. And so he ends

1114
00:57:35,560 --> 00:57:39,360
Speaker 2: up in this inmate who is a big help in

1115
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:40,920
Speaker 2: the you know, because you can have a job in

1116
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 2: prison depending on the nature of the you know, the

1117
00:57:43,400 --> 00:57:45,160
Speaker 2: nature of the crime you committed. And they let him.

1118
00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:45,880
Speaker 2: They let him do that.

1119
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:49,080
Speaker 1: Well. As an attorney, well educated attorney, what do you

1120
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:51,200
Speaker 1: think about the verdict being objective?

1121
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:54,560
Speaker 2: I think a different jury and certainly in a different time,

1122
00:57:54,800 --> 00:57:57,840
Speaker 2: would have convicted him. I see why they acquitted him.

1123
00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:00,720
Speaker 2: I understand, and you can read the record. The thing

1124
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 2: that we left out when he was in New Hampshire

1125
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:04,560
Speaker 2: that we talked about a little bit, he confessed to

1126
00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:07,120
Speaker 2: police for two hours. Oh I know, it's four hours.

1127
00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:09,360
Speaker 2: Part of its two different two hour confessions, first of

1128
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:11,600
Speaker 2: the Conquered Police Department and then to the New York

1129
00:58:11,640 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 2: City Police Department, using language like I wanted to murder

1130
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:18,000
Speaker 2: them and make them suffer as possible. I was. I

1131
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:21,880
Speaker 2: wanted to butcher them. I felt savage. I was overcome

1132
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:26,600
Speaker 2: with rage all plain as day, saying he wanted to

1133
00:58:26,640 --> 00:58:29,520
Speaker 2: kill these guys. The difference is the jury felt that

1134
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:32,480
Speaker 2: he was in in a dreanal haze at the time

1135
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:35,560
Speaker 2: he went into New Hampshire. He'd been on the run

1136
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:37,880
Speaker 2: for nine days and was out of his mind and

1137
00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:39,880
Speaker 2: didn't really know what he was saying, and so they

1138
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:41,920
Speaker 2: discredited his entire confession.

1139
00:58:42,480 --> 00:58:45,240
Speaker 1: Going back to what we just talked about, how do

1140
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:49,760
Speaker 1: you know unless you are that person, what the person's

1141
00:58:49,800 --> 00:58:52,720
Speaker 1: intent was in making that confession. How did they he

1142
00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:56,000
Speaker 1: they know? I mean, that's making assumptions that you shouldn't make.

1143
00:58:56,400 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 2: Absolutely, his defense was very mindful of this fact and

1144
00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:06,680
Speaker 2: leaned into even though our guys confessed, you can't trust

1145
00:59:06,680 --> 00:59:08,800
Speaker 2: his confession. He's out of his mind. He didn't He

1146
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:10,640
Speaker 2: doesn't even know what he's saying. Why do you trust

1147
00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:11,160
Speaker 2: what he's saying?

1148
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:14,760
Speaker 1: Okay, well tell me the future of these five people

1149
00:59:14,760 --> 00:59:19,480
Speaker 1: who become just inexplicably intertwined one afternoon on the Number

1150
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:21,800
Speaker 1: two train going from the Bronx all the way down

1151
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:22,360
Speaker 1: to Brooklyn.

1152
00:59:22,560 --> 00:59:26,680
Speaker 2: Bernard gets has a fascinating future, and I interview him

1153
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:28,560
Speaker 2: in the book Five Bullets, and I talked to him

1154
00:59:28,600 --> 00:59:31,480
Speaker 2: about what life is like today, which is a little bonkers.

1155
00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:36,640
Speaker 2: He ends up just this gadfly, crazy gish guy around

1156
00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:40,400
Speaker 2: town who he runs for mayor and public advocate, which

1157
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:43,960
Speaker 2: is like the city's ombudsman on a vegetarian meals in

1158
00:59:44,080 --> 00:59:48,240
Speaker 2: schools and anti circumcision platform. He shows up in the

1159
00:59:48,280 --> 00:59:51,840
Speaker 2: media sometimes. He is an animal rights activist. He's a

1160
00:59:52,040 --> 00:59:56,520
Speaker 2: pro vegetarian activist. He almost was evicted from his apartment

1161
00:59:56,680 --> 01:00:02,080
Speaker 2: for washing squirrels in his saying he would find squirrels

1162
01:00:02,080 --> 01:00:05,280
Speaker 2: in Washington Square Park and try to wash them and

1163
01:00:05,440 --> 01:00:08,120
Speaker 2: nurse them back to health. He ended up getting arrested

1164
01:00:08,120 --> 01:00:12,400
Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen, oddly enough for marijuana sales, because he

1165
01:00:12,440 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 2: says an undercover cop flirted with him and tried to

1166
01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:17,280
Speaker 2: he wanted to give her the drugs, she insisted that

1167
01:00:17,320 --> 01:00:19,720
Speaker 2: he pay, that she pay, and then as soon as

1168
01:00:19,720 --> 01:00:23,120
Speaker 2: there was a transaction of money, he got arrested. Well, ironically,

1169
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:27,840
Speaker 2: the whole case gets thrown out because police waited too

1170
01:00:27,920 --> 01:00:31,800
Speaker 2: long to charge it, which is fascinating because Bernard gets

1171
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:36,040
Speaker 2: his whole ethos was that the city is slow and

1172
01:00:36,080 --> 01:00:40,400
Speaker 2: incompetent and devoid of decision making. Well that's how he

1173
01:00:40,440 --> 01:00:41,880
Speaker 2: got off. So that's Bernard gets his future.

1174
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:43,120
Speaker 1: Wait is he still alive?

1175
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:45,800
Speaker 2: He is close to eighty, seventy eight years old, seventy

1176
01:00:45,880 --> 01:00:47,560
Speaker 2: years old and just all over the place. He's just

1177
01:00:47,600 --> 01:00:49,240
Speaker 2: you talk to him, he's all over the place. He's

1178
01:00:49,280 --> 01:00:50,080
Speaker 2: literally all over the place.

1179
01:00:50,120 --> 01:00:51,640
Speaker 1: And he's okay with the book? Or how do you

1180
01:00:51,640 --> 01:00:52,840
Speaker 1: think he feels about this book?

1181
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:55,640
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean he made clear to me

1182
01:00:55,800 --> 01:00:58,480
Speaker 2: he wanted me to do a reenactment of the shooting

1183
01:00:58,520 --> 01:01:00,840
Speaker 2: that rather than doing a book, I should get television

1184
01:01:00,880 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 2: to reenact the shooting because nothing else would be fair.

1185
01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:08,400
Speaker 2: He has conveyed through an intermediary actually that if my

1186
01:01:08,600 --> 01:01:12,920
Speaker 2: book does not accurately convey the criminal histories of the

1187
01:01:12,920 --> 01:01:16,680
Speaker 2: four young men, that it's not a fair book, which okay,

1188
01:01:16,760 --> 01:01:19,160
Speaker 2: I mean, what I would respond is that the book

1189
01:01:19,200 --> 01:01:22,440
Speaker 2: Five Bullets makes at least forty one different references to

1190
01:01:22,480 --> 01:01:24,520
Speaker 2: the criminal histories or drug abuse of these young men,

1191
01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:27,840
Speaker 2: but also notes that Bernard Getz didn't know any of

1192
01:01:27,880 --> 01:01:30,680
Speaker 2: it at the time he decided to shoot them. So okay, sir,

1193
01:01:30,960 --> 01:01:34,280
Speaker 2: So yeah, he's just around and it is what he

1194
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:38,480
Speaker 2: is now. Daral Caby ends up paralyzed and brain damaged

1195
01:01:38,520 --> 01:01:40,480
Speaker 2: and just moved out of the city. Doesn't like coming back,

1196
01:01:40,520 --> 01:01:42,560
Speaker 2: but he's around and has family around him. I tried

1197
01:01:42,600 --> 01:01:47,080
Speaker 2: to interview him and his family. They passed. So Kanty

1198
01:01:47,280 --> 01:01:48,760
Speaker 2: is the one that seems to have gotten his life

1199
01:01:48,800 --> 01:01:51,080
Speaker 2: the most back together. He's in upstate New York as

1200
01:01:51,080 --> 01:01:55,440
Speaker 2: an auto mechanic. Barry Allen ended up in jail for

1201
01:01:56,080 --> 01:01:59,080
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of things, end up dying in prison

1202
01:01:59,080 --> 01:02:04,000
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, and James Ramseur, who ended up with

1203
01:02:04,000 --> 01:02:06,840
Speaker 2: the ugliest criminal history of all of them around the

1204
01:02:06,880 --> 01:02:11,480
Speaker 2: time of the shooting, ended up being charged with a

1205
01:02:11,640 --> 01:02:16,800
Speaker 2: horrific sexual assault, in robbery, in battery, ends up going

1206
01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:18,440
Speaker 2: to jail for eight to twenty five years for that,

1207
01:02:18,600 --> 01:02:21,680
Speaker 2: gets out back end parole violations and so on, and

1208
01:02:21,720 --> 01:02:25,560
Speaker 2: then ends up killing himself on December twenty second. I

1209
01:02:25,600 --> 01:02:29,320
Speaker 2: believe it's twenty seventeen or twenty twenty eleven, the anniversary

1210
01:02:29,320 --> 01:02:33,919
Speaker 2: of the shooting. Oh yeah, found in a dingy low

1211
01:02:33,960 --> 01:02:36,720
Speaker 2: rent hotel room and a highway in the Bronx, just

1212
01:02:37,080 --> 01:02:39,400
Speaker 2: pill bottle floating in the toilet. Oh my gosh.

1213
01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:42,040
Speaker 1: And you must have reflected over and over again about

1214
01:02:42,040 --> 01:02:45,800
Speaker 1: how this one incident, this one minute incident in these

1215
01:02:45,840 --> 01:02:51,120
Speaker 1: people's lives, changed the trajectory of their lives. Really. I mean,

1216
01:02:51,120 --> 01:02:52,880
Speaker 1: we don't know what would have happened with Gets, but

1217
01:02:53,240 --> 01:02:54,520
Speaker 1: these four guys.

1218
01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:58,240
Speaker 2: Yes, immeasurably. You can't tell me now. Again, odds weren't

1219
01:02:58,280 --> 01:03:01,480
Speaker 2: great for kids from Housing Pride in the South Bronx

1220
01:03:01,560 --> 01:03:04,360
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty five, as Crack was getting there. However,

1221
01:03:04,840 --> 01:03:08,960
Speaker 2: being shot does not help. Being brain damaged certainly did

1222
01:03:08,960 --> 01:03:12,120
Speaker 2: not help del Kby's prospects, or being paralyzed from the

1223
01:03:12,120 --> 01:03:14,800
Speaker 2: midchest down didn't help his prospects at all for his future.

1224
01:03:15,320 --> 01:03:18,480
Speaker 2: All of them expressed or at least two expressed some interest,

1225
01:03:18,520 --> 01:03:21,800
Speaker 2: some desire to move on from it all before the shooting,

1226
01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:24,160
Speaker 2: to get out of the city, to move up to

1227
01:03:24,240 --> 01:03:26,920
Speaker 2: just find a new life, and were sort of pulled

1228
01:03:27,240 --> 01:03:30,520
Speaker 2: by the forces that got them there. But the four

1229
01:03:30,560 --> 01:03:33,760
Speaker 2: of them and every figure attached to the case. I've

1230
01:03:33,760 --> 01:03:36,960
Speaker 2: been talked about Greg Waples, the prosecutor who I interviewed

1231
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:39,120
Speaker 2: for the case for the book, too, and he felt

1232
01:03:39,200 --> 01:03:42,240
Speaker 2: that it just he was one of the most seasoned

1233
01:03:42,240 --> 01:03:45,360
Speaker 2: prosecutors in New York City and one of Robert Morgenthaw's

1234
01:03:45,400 --> 01:03:48,600
Speaker 2: top lieutenants, and a great widely respected on all sides.

1235
01:03:48,640 --> 01:03:51,120
Speaker 2: He just felt broken by the case. He felt that

1236
01:03:51,560 --> 01:03:54,760
Speaker 2: the hate and the acrimony that came his way dogged

1237
01:03:54,840 --> 01:03:56,480
Speaker 2: him for the rest of his career, and he was

1238
01:03:56,640 --> 01:03:58,280
Speaker 2: just sort of trying to live his life and do

1239
01:03:58,360 --> 01:04:01,800
Speaker 2: his job. And everybody who touched this case seemed to

1240
01:04:01,800 --> 01:04:05,280
Speaker 2: really be brought down by accept the national figures who

1241
01:04:05,400 --> 01:04:07,000
Speaker 2: sort of rose to prominence out of it, which is

1242
01:04:07,080 --> 01:04:11,520
Speaker 2: Rudy Giuliani, who was the US Attorney and certainly used

1243
01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:14,720
Speaker 2: it on his path to start him Al Sharpton. It

1244
01:04:14,760 --> 01:04:18,760
Speaker 2: was his first big national story. Rupert Murdoch. Anything that

1245
01:04:18,800 --> 01:04:21,560
Speaker 2: gave the New York Post something to glom Onto was

1246
01:04:21,600 --> 01:04:24,120
Speaker 2: good for Rupert Murdock. And finally, the National Rifle Association

1247
01:04:24,200 --> 01:04:29,080
Speaker 2: had just pivoted from being a hunting with Grandpa organization

1248
01:04:29,680 --> 01:04:33,320
Speaker 2: to being a self defense and political advocacy organization, and

1249
01:04:33,320 --> 01:04:36,200
Speaker 2: they funded his trial a little bit, given twenty thousand dollars.

1250
01:04:36,640 --> 01:04:41,080
Speaker 1: So, finally, how do you think this specific story is framed?

1251
01:04:41,320 --> 01:04:43,960
Speaker 1: Now we've heard a lot about the menindas brothers and

1252
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:45,960
Speaker 1: how it's been sort of reframed. Now that we have

1253
01:04:46,080 --> 01:04:49,720
Speaker 1: all of this context, now, what do you think is

1254
01:04:49,760 --> 01:04:50,600
Speaker 1: there a reframing.

1255
01:04:50,720 --> 01:04:52,840
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a reframing, but there's a gentle

1256
01:04:52,920 --> 01:04:55,479
Speaker 2: shift in how we think about these people. Many people

1257
01:04:55,480 --> 01:04:56,800
Speaker 2: who I think might have been quick to think of

1258
01:04:56,840 --> 01:04:59,080
Speaker 2: Bernard Gets as a hero in nineteen eighty four would

1259
01:04:59,120 --> 01:05:01,760
Speaker 2: be more skeptical of him and his behavior in twenty

1260
01:05:01,800 --> 01:05:05,120
Speaker 2: twenty six. I just think he's a more nuanced, complex

1261
01:05:05,160 --> 01:05:08,760
Speaker 2: figure than the avenger who's standing up for us. And

1262
01:05:08,800 --> 01:05:13,080
Speaker 2: I think the four victims would be seen as, Yeah,

1263
01:05:13,280 --> 01:05:15,120
Speaker 2: they did bad things, and I am not going to

1264
01:05:15,160 --> 01:05:21,000
Speaker 2: gloss over their misdeeds, particularly James Ramser's vicious sexual assault.

1265
01:05:21,080 --> 01:05:24,120
Speaker 2: They committed awful crimes that hurt many people, but they

1266
01:05:24,160 --> 01:05:27,480
Speaker 2: would be treated with a little bit more care than

1267
01:05:27,760 --> 01:05:29,960
Speaker 2: certainly the media would have regarded them, or tried to

1268
01:05:29,960 --> 01:05:32,400
Speaker 2: regard them in the early nineteen eighties, and just well,

1269
01:05:32,440 --> 01:05:35,520
Speaker 2: this is far more complex and one of the epigraph

1270
01:05:35,960 --> 01:05:37,680
Speaker 2: I always get the epi's wrong. I think it's the

1271
01:05:37,760 --> 01:05:39,280
Speaker 2: quote at the beginning of the book. One of the

1272
01:05:39,320 --> 01:05:41,439
Speaker 2: two that I use is from an old New York

1273
01:05:41,520 --> 01:05:44,480
Speaker 2: State case, which is that the worst man in society

1274
01:05:44,520 --> 01:05:47,280
Speaker 2: has every right to live in society as the best

1275
01:05:47,280 --> 01:05:51,400
Speaker 2: man in society, regardless of his status. Right. And the

1276
01:05:51,400 --> 01:05:53,120
Speaker 2: fact that you're sort of a shakedown artist and a

1277
01:05:53,120 --> 01:05:55,160
Speaker 2: bad guy might mean that you should go to jail

1278
01:05:55,200 --> 01:05:57,960
Speaker 2: for that, But that doesn't mean that a vigilante has

1279
01:05:57,960 --> 01:06:00,280
Speaker 2: the right to just open fire on you because you

1280
01:06:00,280 --> 01:06:02,520
Speaker 2: look at him funny, and that's kind of you know. Again,

1281
01:06:02,920 --> 01:06:05,480
Speaker 2: I don't want to be too dismissive of Gatz, but

1282
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Speaker 2: that's kind of what happened here.

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Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

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Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Sinners All Bow, The

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Speaker 1: Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and

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01:06:27,760 --> 01:06:31,040
Speaker 1: don't forget. There are twelve seasons of my historical true

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Speaker 1: crime podcast, tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,

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Speaker 1: scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already.

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Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer

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Speaker 1: is Alexis m Rosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

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Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is

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Speaker 1: our composer. Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hartstark,

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Speaker 1: Karen Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram

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Speaker 1: and Facebook at tenfold more Wicked and on Twitter at

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Speaker 1: tenfold More and if you know of a historical crime

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01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:09,000
Speaker 1: that could use some attention from the crew at tenfold

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Speaker 1: more Wicked, email us at info at tenfoldmore Wicked dot com.

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Speaker 1: We'll also take your suggestions for true crime authors for

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Speaker 1: Wicked Words