Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a matched gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
News

Bernie Goetz’s Shooting Victim Found Dead

A man who was shot and wounded by New York subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz was reportedly found dead in a suspected suicide, 27 years to the day since the famous incident.

James Ramseur, now 45, was found in his room in a seedy Bronx motel with two empty bottles of pills by his side, the New York Post reported.

Police suspect Ramseur, who has been in and out of jail in recent years, killed himself, the Daily News reported.

Ramseur and three buddies were riding a downtown No. 2 train when they walked up to the bespectacled Goetz and asked for $5 on December 22, 1984.

The teens said they were only panhandling. Goetz claimed they were trying to rob him, pulled out a gun and opened fire, wounding them.

Frustrated with then-rising crime, some called him a hero. Others said he was racist since all four victims were black.

A jury acquitted Goetz on most charges, although he did serve several months for weapons possession.

It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!

This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions. 

We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.

As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday! 

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.