BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//sebbo.net//ical-generator//EN NAME:DC Public Library X-WR-CALNAME:DC Public Library BEGIN:VEVENT UID:83b346e9-9922-4100-9ef6-4fe6d680096a SEQUENCE:0 DTSTAMP:20260807T093309Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260611T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260611T203000 SUMMARY:Five Bullets: A Book Talk with Elliot Williams LOCATION:Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library - Central Library\nMartin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library - Central Library X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Martin Luther King Jr. Mem orial Library - Central Library;X-APPLE-RADIUS=10;X-TITLE=Martin Luther Ki ng Jr. Memorial Library - Central Library:geo:38.8986823,-77.024871 GEO:38.8986823;-77.024871 DESCRIPTION:When Bernhard Goetz shot four unarmed Black teenagers in 1984\ , half of New York called him a hero. Elliot Williams explains how it happ ened during an evening conversation with Jonathan Capehart..\nhttps://dcli brary.libnet.info/event/16511918 X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:

On December 22\, 1984\, Bernhard Goetz boa rded a New York City subway car and opened fire on four Black teenagers fr om the Bronx &mdash\; a moment that would divide a city\, ignite a nationa l debate\, and expose the fault lines of American justice.

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Join us for a community conversation around Five Bullets\, the acclaimed new book by CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams. Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by The New York Times and The Washington Post\, Five Bullets takes readers back to a gritty\, fear-gripped New York to reexamine the case of the so-called &ldquo\;Subway Vigilante&rdquo\; & mdash\; and asks questions that feel as urgent now as they did forty years ago: Who gets to feel safe in America? Who is cast as the threat? And how do media\, politics\, and public perception shape what we call justice?\n

From the courtroom to the tabloids\, from Al Sharpton to Rupert Mur doch\, Williams traces how one act of violence became a referendum on race \, self-defense\, and the conscience of a nation &mdash\; with echoes that reach from the 1980s straight to our present day.

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Whether you&rsq uo\;ve read the book or are coming with fresh eyes\, this is a conversatio n you won&rsquo\;t want to miss.

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For reasonable a ccommodations\, please contact the Center for Accessibility at 202-727-214 2 or DCPLaccess@dc.gov. For ASL or tactile interpretation\, please allow a t least seven (7) days notice

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About the Author
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Elliot \;Williams \;is a CNN legal analyst and regular guest host on SiriusXM and WAMU\, NPR&rsq uo\;s Washington\, DC\, station. He has spent his career thinking about la w\, crime\, and politics\, serving as a federal prosecutor and later as a senior official at the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. A Bro oklyn-born son of Jamaican immigrants\, he grew up in New Jersey and vivid ly recalls the powder keg that was 1980s New York. He now lives in Washing ton with his wife and two children.

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About the Conversation Partner
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&nb sp\;Jonathan Capehart is a Pulitz er Prize-winning journalist who is co-host of the morning edition of &ldqu o\;The Weekend&rdquo\; on MS NOW (7am - 10am) and the New York Times bests elling author of \;&ldquo\;Yet Here I Am: Lessons from A Black Man&rsq uo\;s Search for Home.&rdquo\; \;From 2020 until 2025\, he was the anc hor of MSNBC&rsquo\;s \;&ldquo\;The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart.&rdquo\; \;At PBS\, Capehart serves as a political analyst o n &ldquo\;PBS News Hour&rdquo\; and is featured on the popular Friday segm ent \;&ldquo\;Brooks and Capehart.&rdquo\; \;

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Capehart is a \;former Associate Editor \;of The Washington Post\, where he se rved as an opinion writer for 18 years. \;He was deputy editorial page editor of the \;New York Daily News \;(2002-2004) and served on i ts editorial board (1993-2000). His editorial campaign in 1999 to save the Apollo Theater earned the board the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing.

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About the Book \;

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From CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams\, a revelatory account of how one man\, four teenagers\, and a struggling city collided o ver race\, vigilantism\, and public safety . . . exposing the fault lines of a nation

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On a dirty New York subway car on December 22 \, 1984\, Bernhard Goetz shot Barry Allen\, Darrell Cabey\, Troy Canty\, a nd James Ramseur\, four teenagers from the Bronx\, at point blank range. G oetz claimed they were going to mug him\; the teens claim that one of them had simply asked for five dollars.

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Crime was at an all-time high. So was racial tension. Was Goetz\, who was white\, a hero who finally fou ght back? Or a bigot whose itchy trigger finger seriously wounded three un armed black kids and condemned a fourth to irreversible brain damage? By t he time Goetz went on trial for quadruple attempted murder\, the &ldquo\;S ubway Vigilante&rdquo\; saga had become a global sensation\, and New Yorke rs across race and class were split over whether he deserved decades in pr ison&hellip\;or a medal.

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In \;Five Bullets\, Elliot Williams v aults back to gritty 1980s Manhattan and reexamines the first major true-c rime story of the cable news era. Drawing on archives and interviews with many main characters\, including Goetz\, Williams presents a masterful and vivid tale that also tells the origin stories of larger-than-life figures : Al Sharpton\, a polarizing young local activist rocketing to national pr ominence\; Rudy Giuliani\, a rising-star prosecutor with an important deci sion to make\; the NRA\, which needed a poster boy for its transition from hunting club to political juggernaut\; and Rupert Murdoch\, whose new pur chase\, the \;New York Post\, grew his empire by keeping a scary story in the headlines.

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A shocking account of a pivotal moment in our h istory\, \;Five Bullets \;demonstrates why\, in order to understan d today&rsquo\;s debates about race\, crime\, safety\, and the media\, it& rsquo\;s imperative to reflect on what went down in the subway four decade s ago. As Williams&rsquo\;s powerful narrative reveals\, it was not just G oetz on trial\, but the conscience of a nation.

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