The Legacy of the Subway Vigilante

Talking Feds stalwart Elliot Williams joins Harry to discuss his new book, Five Bullets. The pair turn to the blighted and crime-stricken New York of the 1980s to get at some of the unanswered questions from the case of Bernhard Goetz and why the five shots he fired at Black teenagers which made him—to so many Americans—a folk hero. What made it so hard for prosecutors to convict Goetz? What did his trial expose about the limits of what our justice system can offer? And why the lasting American fascination with the idea of a gunman taking the law into his own hands?Mentioned in this episode: Williams' book:  https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/768052/five-bullets-by-elliot-williams/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices