A single confrontation on a New York subway crystallized the competing problems of crime and law enforcement. Bernhard Goetz, middle-aged and bespectacled, was confronted by several teenagers on an otherwise empty subway train. Crime in NYC ran rampant then, greatly above the national average, and particularly at the subway. As the teenagers approached, Goetz knew what was coming. They demanded he hand over his money; instead he pulled out his unlicensed revolver and wounded all four.

On this day, October 20, in 1987, in a second trial Bernard Goetz was sentenced to half a year in jail for carrying an unlicensed firearm. The first trial for the shooting found Goetz not guilty.

Whatever the legal verdict, the court of public opinion largely took Goetz’s side. Unbeknownst to him, in the weeks after the shooting that he spent hiding out he became a folk hero. Goetz stood up to his would-be robbers, and for that was featured on the covers of numerous magazines, giving his story to everyone who would listen.