In the early afternoon of December 22, 1984, four African American men — Barry Allen, 19; Troy Canty, 19; James Ramseur, 18; and Darrell Cabey, 19 — boarded a downtown No. 2 express train on a stated mission to steal money from video arcade machines in Manhattan.

Goetz entered the same subway car at the 14th Street station and sat down near the four men, who were positioned to his right. According to Goetz’s statement to the police, approximately ten seconds later Troy Canty asked him, “How are you?” Goetz responded “I’m fine”. According to Goetz, the four men gave signals to each other, and shortly thereafter Canty and Barry Allen rose from their seats and moved over to the left of Goetz, blocking Goetz off from the other passengers in the car. Canty then calmly said to Goetz, “Give me five dollars.” According to the men’s testimony, Canty was panhandling, although eyewitness testimony given at Goetz’s criminal trial generally agreed that the four men were aggressive and threatening. Goetz told police that he thought from the smile on Canty’s face that they wanted to “play with me,” and he decided on a “pattern of fire” that he would use to shoot them. Goetz, pretending not to hear them, asked Canty, “What did you say?” Canty calmly repeated, “Give me five dollars.” Goetz told police that he “snapped” and that his intention at that point was to “murder them, to hurt them, to make them suffer as much as possible.” At the criminal trial, Goetz’s defense attorneys, Barry Slotnick and Mark Baker, argued that this and other extreme statements by Goetz were the product of an overactive imagination.

After the second demand or request for money, Goetz rose from his seat, and from beneath his blue windbreaker fast-drew a .38 Special five-shot Smith & Wesson revolver and fired five shots with speed shooting. (Speed shooting is a very fast technique, primarily effective at close range, where the shooter initiates trigger pull prior to the sights being aligned on the target.) In media interviews, Goetz, who had prior firearms and target shooting experience, described how he discharged all five rounds in less than 1.6 seconds. (Some eyewitness testimony stated all shots were fired within one second.)

The first shot hit Canty in the center of the chest; the second shot struck Allen in the upper rear shoulder while he was turned about 90 degrees from Mr. Goetz. The angle of the bullet suggested that Mr. Allen was ducking[1]; the third shot hit the subway wall just in front of Cabey; the fourth shot hit Cabey in the left side, severing his spinal cord and rendering him paraplegic; the fifth shot went through Ramseur’s arm and lodged itself in his left side. Goetz then immediately looked at the first two men to make sure they were “taken care of.” Goetz then saw Cabey moving on the bench and confessed to approaching Cabey and saying, “You don’t look too bad, here’s another,” and then attempted to shoot Cabey again in the stomach, with an empty gun. Cabey, who was briefly standing prior to the shooting, was sitting on the subway bench during all attempted shots. In his subsequent police statement, Goetz explained, “If I had had more [bullets], I would have shot them again, and again, and again.”

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