Bernhard Goetz today said one of the four young men he infamously shot on a Manhattan subway likely was “depressed” when he killed himself on the 27th anniversary of that shooting.
And Goetz said he regrets not talking to a man he believed to be shooting victim James Ramseur after seeing him “grinning at me” at an event last year.
“It sounds like he was depressed,” Goetz told The Post in an e-mail when asked about Ramseur’s apparent prescription-pill overdose Thursday in the Paradise Hotel in The Bronx.
“It must have seemed weird to him, being raised with violence, spending 25 years in prison, and then coming back to a changed New York.”
Goetz added: “Maybe his suicide was a statement, but I haven’t figured it out.”
Several pill bottles were found in Ramseur’s room, including one in the toilet. No note was found.
Goetz shot Ramseur, then 18, and three of his pals on Dec. 22, 1984, on a No. 2 subway train after they allegedly demanded $5 from him.
The shooting polarized the city, with some hailing the “Subway Vigilante” for resisting a citywide crime wave and others condemning the electronics specialist for what they saw as a racially motivated attack on the black youths.
In November 2010 — four months after Ramseur was released after serving 25 years in prison for the rape of a pregnant woman — Goetz spotted a man he thought was Ramseur catering at an event hosted by the good-government advocacy group New York Civic.
Ed Koch, mayor at the time of the shooting, spoke there.
“In hindsight, I probably should have opened up a conversation. But I’m not sure it was him,” Goetz said.
Goetz served eight months in prison after being convicted of possessing a loaded gun in the shooting, but was cleared of attempted murder.
dan.mangan@nypost.com