This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated May 12, 2023
Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old African American man who many subway riders were familiar with from his Michael Jackson impersonation that he did while busking on trains and on platforms, was killed on an F train on Monday, May 1. Neely was experiencing homelessness and was suffering a mental health crisis when a subway rider decided to place him into a chokehold for fifteen minutes, subsequently ending his life.
So, before delving further into what occurred in that subway car and the public discussion regarding how Neely died, we should look back at what contributed to him getting to the point of begging for food on the subway and yelling, “I’m ready to die.”
When Neely was a 14-year-old boy, his mother was murdered by a man she was in an abusive relationship with, with her body being discovered in a suitcase along the Henry Hudson Parkway. Relatives told The Independent that he developed PTSD, depression, and schizophrenia. In recent years, Neely experience homelessness and struggled with his mental health.
And on the last day of his life he did something that I imagine all of us who have rode the subway regularly have encountered. I know I have been in a subway car with someone who seems unstable, who is clearly having a mental health issue and acting unpredictably. I have been in the situation where I made sure I was ready to protect myself or others if the unnerving verbal actions escalated to physical violence.
However, neither I, nor any of the people who were ever on those trains with me during those encounters, ever took it upon ourselves to initiate a physical altercation with the person making everyone feel uncomfortable as Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old former Marine, did with Neely. As Neely screamed and then threw down his jacket, Penny came up to him from behind and placed him in a choke-hold, subsequently taking him to the ground.
“You’re gonna kill him.”
Warning to Daniel Penny from another subway rider, as they witnessed his extended chokehold on Jordan Neely that ultimately resulted in his death.
Beyond his decision to subdue Neely by wrapping his arm around his neck, Penny chose to maintain the hold for fifteen minutes, even as onlookers voiced concerns about what he was doing and whether Neely might die. Video show that somebody said they should check if Neely had defecated, adding, “You don’t want to catch a murder charge. You got a hell of a chokehold, man.” When a passenger told Penny that Neely had defecated, indicating that he may have died, the passenger then said, “You’re gonna kill him.”
But Penny did not stop until after he had killed him, apparently, as Neely was completed motionless with no signs of life by the time he released the fifteen-minute choke-hold. Penny was questioned by police but promptly released without being charged. The medical ruled the death a homicide, stemming from compression of the neck, and the district attorney ultimately charged Penny with manslaughter on May 12.
Jordan Neely was having a mental health crisis, which is not a crime. Jordan Neely was unhoused, which is not a crime. Jordan Neely was hungry, which is not a crime. He may have been acting erratically, and that may been scary for the passengers on that train, but a vigilante choking him for fifteen minutes until dead? That is a crime.
Legally, yelling does not violate any criminal statute, but being overtly threatening, even if not physical, is assault. Legally, someone may be legally justified in using just enough force to stop the threat. Even if parsing this incident through that lens, choking someone for fifteen minutes, something that any reasonable person would say could, or is likely to, kill someone, is not justified. Force was not necessary here at all, but certainly killing Neely for whatever non-physical crime he may have possibly committed cannot be brushed aside as simply a tragic incident.
Neely should have received more help. The state he was in, hungry and in severe mental distress, is as much an indictment on how our city treats – or, more aptly, does not treat — those who are struggling with basic human needs as the fifteen-minute chokehold is on Penny, a former marine who had to have known that his maneuver could lead to death.
This death of a young man who needed help has sparked outrage, but it has also elicited some negative reactions that are very different: those who are eager to defend the fifteen-minute chokehold and dismiss the notion there was anything wrong with hat response.
We need to be a city that values everyone’s life, and that means helping those who are in need of food, shelter, and mental health services. And we need to be a city that does not condone vigilante’s self-imposing death sentences when they feel they have encountered a criminal act.
