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Subway vigilante Daniel Penny might not be charged. 🧵
Much has changed since I worked Manhattan DA under Robert Morgenthau, who charged known racist Bernie Goetz with attempted murder after shooting four black teenagers who harassed and threatened him on the subway in 1984. They all survived. 
NYC subways were then dangerous sh*tholes. Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the Goetz incident as the Tipping Point when the city began its motion towards improvement, order, and public beautification later embodied by Giuliani and Broken Windows Theory to NYC's 90s heyday.
Before Goetz and Broken Windows, the subways were borderline unusable for normal people. Just total nightmare zones where assaults and robberies were essentially guaranteed.
New Yorkers overwhelmingly supported Goetz, and a Grand Jury initially refused to even indict him. Liberal Morgenthau pressed the case, and eventually he was indicted on attempted murder, assault, and gun charges.
But he won at trial, arraigned of the serious charges, convicted only on a gun charge for which he served 8 months.
The public outpouring of support solidified the incident as a major win for the working people of NYC, who were tired of being constantly harassed on the subway.
The public outpouring of support solidified the incident as a major win for the working people of NYC, who were tired of being constantly harassed on the subway.
Even the staunchest Marxist couldn't deny that making the subways safe, clean, and usable for working people was a good thing.
Normal everday working New Yorkers celebrated en masse. They'd gotten their subways back.
Normal everday working New Yorkers celebrated en masse. They'd gotten their subways back.
Bragg is Soros DA, and Soros DAs will act against the will of their offices and constituencies, just as Morgenthau, the very definition of a Cathedral administrator, did in his own day.
So charges against Penny are certainly possible.
So charges against Penny are certainly possible.
However, during my experience working as an Investigative Analyst (glorified paralegal) at the Manhattan DA after college, I will say that for the NYPD/DANY deep state, the Goetz case is a legend that runs deep.
Like most working American men of voting age, the NYPD union supports Trump. The DA's office investigators, usually retired NYPD officers, are even more grizzled and conservative. For them, Goetz is a foundational myth for NYC toughness.
Mayor Eric Adams comes from this milieu
Mayor Eric Adams comes from this milieu
Even among ADAs, the Goetz case is remembered and oft-cited as an inflection point—what happens when progressive naivety goes too far. New Yorkers view themselves as take-no-shit, no-nonsense fighters who overcame the odds to make a beautiful city. Goetz is a HUGE part of that.
Bragg will be urged by his handlers to go against the will of his office—and of working New Yorkers that Soros et al supposedly "care" about—to bring charges anyway, but doing so will create a deep divide in the power structure. It's risk he might not be willing to take.
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