There is always a prosecutor around the corner, waiting to make a name for themselves, if some poor shmuck tries to defend themselves against an attacker. The first that comes to mind is one Leonard Goetz, who used a fire arm in a NY subway to fend off a mob of punks. The district attorney shredded crocodile tears in front of a jury of twelve, demanding that Goetz broke the law defending himself. After all, we are a nation of laws and if we all disobey the law, we would have anarchy on our streets, bla bla bla. Of course, the jury did not buy his line of crap, putting the DA at odds against his gun-control bosses. Like any good DA with a bloody nose, he went back to score a conviction on concealment charges. This received little or no reaction from a public who, in my opinion, should have demanded his immediate resignation.
Youths will be youths, but when we have a criminal justice system, and some horrendously power-hungry individuals in it, who do not respect our constitutional right of self protection, they are the problem!
I think you mean Bernard (Bernie) Goetz. His mistakes were to say "you don't look so bad" to one of the wounded perps and shoot him a second time, and to later turn himself in. Though the prosecutors wanted to find him, the cops wouldn't have put a major effort into tracking him down.
All of Goetz's assailants, except for the man that he paralyzed, were later arrested for additional crimes. The paralyzed man eventually received a jury award against Mr. Goetz.