by Jon Beeman and Evan Lange
| November 7, 1947 | Bernhard Hugo Goetz is born in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York. |
| 1969 | Goetz graduates from New York University with a degree in electrical and nuclear engineering. |
| 1975 | Goetz launches his own business out of his Greenwich Village apartment calibrating electronic equipment. |
| 1981 | Goetz is violently mugged by 3 African-American men who shove him through a window. Unsatisfied with the punishment for the men, Goetz begins to question the effectiveness of NYC Police and starts to carry a concealed gun. |
| December 22, 1984 | On board NYC's No. 2 Expressway, Goetz fears trouble after being approached by four African-American men. He fires five shots, injuring all four African Americans and leaving one of them (Darrell Cabey) permanently paralyzed. Goetz rents a car and flees to New England. |
| December 29, 1984 | Goetz, after telephoning his neighbor, learns that he is has been identified as a suspect in the subway shootings. |
| December 31, 1984 | Goetz turns himself in to Concord, New Hampshire police. Barry Allen, one of the four men shot, goes home after nine days of hospitalization. |
| January 2, 1985 | Goetz is arraigned in a New Hampshire Court. Troy Canty, another one of the young men shot, prepares to leave the hospital. |
| January 3, 1985 | Goetz is brought back to Manhattan and arraigned on four charges of attempted murder; bail is set at $50,000. |
| January 9, 1985 | Darrell Cabey stops breathing and slips into a coma. If Cabey dies, Goetz’s attempted murder charge would be bumped up to murder. |
| January 25, 1985 | In a hearing before a grand jury, prosecutors seek indictments on four counts of attempted murder, four counts of assault, one count of reckless endangerment and four counts of criminal possession of a weapon. The 23 jurors refused to indict Goetz on anything more serious than three counts of illegal gun possession. |
| February 1985 | Two victims, Canty and Cabey, file civil suits against Goetz seeking $50 million in damages. |
| February 26, 1985 | U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani decides not to proceed with a federal civil rights prosecution after finding insufficient evidence that race was a motive in the shooting. |
| March 14, 1985 | Based on new evidence regarding the fifth shot that paralyzed Cabey, District Attorney Waples petitions Judge Crane to allow him to resubmit the assault and attempted murder charged to a grand jury. |
| March 27, 1985 | A second grand jury indicts Goetz on ten new charges, including four charges of attempted murder and four charges of assault. |
| June 27, 1985 | Goetz shooting victim James Ramseur is arrested for raping and robbing a nineteen-year-old woman at his apartment complex. |
| October 14, 1985 | Goetz moves to dismiss the charges contained in the second indictment alleging that the evidence before the grand jury was not sufficient to establish the offenses charged and that the prosecutor’s instructions to the grand jury on self-defense were erroneous and prejudicial to the defendant. |
| January 21, 1986 | Judge Crane dismisses nine counts of the original thirteen based on the prosecution’s explanation of the New York self-defense statute to the second grand jury, leaving only the charges of gun possession and reckless endangerment. |
| March 3, 1986 | James Ramseur is convicted of rape, robbery, sodomy, sexual abuse, assault, criminal use of a firearm, and possession of stolen property. He will spend the next 24 years in prison on these charges. A year after his release, on December 22, 2011, Ramseur dies from a drug overdose (suicide cannot be ruled out). |
| July 8, 1986 | The New York Court of Appeals holds that the prosecution’s self-defense description was correct and all counts of the indictment are reinstated. |
| December 12, 1986 | The criminal trial of the People of New York v. Bernhard Hugo Goetz opens in New York City. |
| December 13, 1986 | Three hundred prospective jurors are summoned to the Manhattan Supreme Court for initial jury selection and voir dire.The jury selected is mostly Caucasian and includes six members who were previously victims of crimes. |
| April 27, 1987 | After a long and tedious voir dire process, opening statements are made in the Goetz trial. |
| May 5, 1987 | James Ramseur enters the courtroom to testify for the prosecution. He refuses to testify and Judge Crane holds him in contempt. |
| May 19, 1987 | James Ramseur returns to the courtroom to purge his contempt citations. After Slotnick’s two-day cross examination, Ramseur refuses to answer any more of Slotnick’s questions and Judge Crane reinstates the contempt charges and strikes Ramseur's testimony from the record. |
| June 2, 1987 | The defense rests without calling Bernhard Goetz to the stand. |
| June 10-12, 1987 | Closing arguments are made in the Goetz trial. |
| June 16, 1987 | The jury finds Bernhard Goetz guilty on the charge of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree. Goetz is acquitted of all counts relating to attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. (Goetz is later sentenced to six months in jail, one year of psychiatric treatment, five years of probation, two hundred hours of community service and a fine of $5,000.) |
| November 22, 1987 | Goetz’s sentence is upheld by the Court of Appeals of New York. |
| April 1996 | The civil suit against Goetz filed by Darrell Cabey is tried. The jury, comprised mostly of African-Americans and Hispanics, finds Goetz liable of reckless and deliberate infliction of emotional distress and awards Cabey $43 million in damages ($18 million for pain and suffering and $25 million for punitive damages). Goetz subsequently files for bankruptcy. |
| 2001 | Goetz runs unsuccessfully for Mayor of New York City. |
| 2002 | Goetz plays a criminalist who teaches students how to use a concealed weapon in the movie “Every Move You Make.” |
| 2004 | Goetz is interviewed by Nancy Grace on Larry King Live and states that his actions served the greater good for New York City. |
| 2005 | Goetz runs unsuccessfully for New York City Public Advocate. |
| 2010 | Goetz is interviewed for an episode of The Biography Channel’s “Aftermath with William Shatner.” Goetz continues to believe his actions on the New York City subway were fully justified. |
| 2014 | New York City prosecutors announce that they will try Goetz for allegedly selling $30 worth of marijuana to an undercover officer after Goetz rejects a plea offer involving 10 days of community service. |