The shooting brought to light the ongoing problem of crime in the subway, and was significantly covered in local tabloids, where Goetz was initially praised for fighting back against crime and was compared to the movie ‘Death Wish’, which bore a striking similarity to Goetz’s shooting. In ‘Death Wish’, Charles Bronson’s character takes a vigilante approach to fighting crime in New York after his wife is violently murdered, including a scene where he guns down muggers in a subway train.
Goetz would become known as the ‘Subway Vigilante’ even before his true identity became known nine days later, when he turned himself in.
Varying eyewitness accounts of the shooting made it difficult to sort out what exactly had happened leading up to the shooting and how it had taken place, including crucial details concerning how one man was shot who was left paralyzed from the confrontation…