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no scar and didn’t work at all. Brussel thought the target had been born and educated in Germany, but Metesky was a Slav. Brussel predicted that the bomber had heart disease, but Metesky had tuberculosis. Had it not been for Alice Kelly’s careful detective work, Metesky might never have been found. Kelly turned down the twenty-six-thousand-dollar reward she was offered for the Mad Bomber’s capture, saying she had just been doing her job.
    But Brussel’s story was what people remembered, particularly the bit about the buttoned double-breasted jacket. He became the first famous criminal profiler, and everyone who has come along since owes something to his work in helping to catch the Mad Bomber.
     
     
    JASON GIDEON mentions Brussel’s profile of Metesky when discussing the difficulties of profiling in the episode “A Real Rain” (117). In this episode, the unknown subject of the investigation (the “unsub,” in FBI parlance) is a serial vigilante, killing people who have been acquitted of crimes but whom he believes to be guilty. Gideon worries that the case may become reminiscent of another vigilante folk hero, Bernhard Hugo Goetz, who in 1984 became famous for shooting four young black men on a New York City subway because he believed they were going to rob him.
    Crime was a given in New York City in the early 1980s; the reported crime rate there was 70 percent higher than in the rest of the country. An average of thirty-eight crimes took place on New York subways every day.
    In January 1981, three young black men had attacked Goetz at the Canal Street subway station. They smashed him into a plate-glass window and tore the cartilage in his knee. Only one of the three men was apprehended, and he spent three hours at police headquarters, charged only with criminal mischief for tearing Goetz’s jacket. Goetz, clearly the victim, was at headquarters for six hours. He was almost as outraged by the aftermath as by the attack itself.
    Later that year, Goetz went to Florida and bought a .38 revolver, since he couldn’t get a pistol permit in New York.
    The Saturday before Christmas in 1984, Goetz stepped onto a largely empty subway car. On board were four black youths, headed into Manhattan to steal money from video arcade machines. Two of them rose, blocking the view of Goetz from other passengers. Nineteen-year-old Troy Canty approached Goetz and demanded five dollars. Goetz stood up, unzipped his jacket, and asked Canty to repeat what he had said. Canty did. One of the other men made a gesture that Goetz interpreted to mean that he had a weapon. Goetz said that he mentally constructed his field of fire, drew his .38, and fired five times. One shot missed, but the other four found their marks, each hitting one of the young men. None died, but nineteen-year-old Darrell Cabey’s spinal cord was severed, causing brain damage and paralyzing him from the waist down.
    When a conductor entered the car, Goetz explained that the young men had tried to rob him. The train stopped before the next station, and Goetz slipped away into the darkened tunnel. Hurrying home, he packed a bag and hit the road for New England, where he dumped his clothes and disassembled his .38, tossing the pieces into the woods.
    Goetz was an instant celebrity. Citizens bemoaned his lack of accuracy, not his vigilante approach. He traded on his notoriety, giving dozens of interviews, speaking about crime, and attending the funerals of crime victims. His supporters were all in favor of his actions, whereas his detractors called him a racist and accused him of skulking about the subway armed and looking for an excuse to shoot somebody, just to take revenge on any black youths for the wrong that had been done to him in 1981.
    Goetz turned himself in to the police in New Hampshire and stayed at the police station until New York’s finest came to pick him up. Back home, he was arraigned for attempted murder and illegal possession of a firearm, but a grand