The Subway Vigilante (1984) w/ Leon Neyfakh
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 1 August 2023
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s August 1st. This day in 1996, a judge ruled that Bernie Goetz still owed his victims millions of dollars in damages as a result of the “Subway Vigilante” incident some twelve years earlier.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Leon Neyfakh to discuss the subway shooting, the media frenzy surrounding Goetz, and the long legal fallout that resulted from the incident.
Leon’s latest season of FIASCO on the vigilante story is available now on Audible and you can find information on how to listen to previous seasons here.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. |
| 0:07.0 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:11.0 | This day, August 1st, 1996, a judge ruled that a man by the name of Bernie Gets still owed one of his victims, |
| 0:19.0 | 43 million dollars in damages, despite the fact that Gets at this point was completely bankrupt. |
| 0:25.3 | Why did this man owe someone millions and damages? |
| 0:27.5 | Why was he bankrupt? |
| 0:28.5 | Well, many of you will know that name, Bernie Gets, and the incident, some some 12 years earlier that set all of this off. |
| 0:35.5 | That incident was on the New York City subway where Gets shot four young black men on a train |
| 0:41.5 | in Manhattan after they allegedly tried to rob him. |
| 0:45.0 | Gets was almost immediately branded as the subway vigilante, |
| 0:49.0 | the incident becoming a huge flashpoint, a very racialized flashpoint, in an era of high crime and even higher fear in |
| 0:56.3 | New York City but not many people may know that much beyond that they may know |
| 1:00.6 | the name Bertie Gets they know the idea of the subway |
| 1:03.1 | vigilante, a lot of people form their opinions just on knowing that amount of |
| 1:07.4 | information, and certainly people may not know about the legal fallout that |
| 1:11.4 | lasted for well over a decade after this incident. |
| 1:14.8 | Luckily though, there is a new series from Leon Nefak all about this incident and its aftermath |
| 1:19.8 | and the context. |
| 1:21.2 | Leon, as you may know, is the creator of Slow Burn and now his historical audio and |
| 1:25.8 | TV series is fiasco, which he has done many seasons on and has often come on this show to talk about |
| 1:31.5 | Leon or some of the other seasons. you did the AIDS crisis which is incredible |
| 1:35.3 | Thank you yes AIDS was the most recent one before that we did the Ben-Gazi attack |
... |
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