#Death of Jordan Neely

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Marina Dunbar and Edward Helmore at The Guardian:

A Manhattan jury has acquitted Daniel Penny in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely at the end of a weeks-long trial that sparked a fierce debate about whether the defendant was – as others put it – a “vigilante” or a “hero”.

Penny, a 26-year-old former Marine who is white, was charged in the death of Neely, a 30-year-old unhoused Black man, which occurred on a New York City subway train last year. Penny held Neely in a lethal chokehold. Penny was charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide following Neely’s killing, which received widespread attention. Both charges carried the potential for prison time. On Friday, the jury in the case said it had been unable to reach a verdict on a charge of manslaughter after more than two days of deliberations. Judge Maxwell Wiley dismissed the charge and directed the panel to consider the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide. Penny was acquitted of the lesser charge after two hours of deliberations on Monday. In the courtroom, there was a burst of applause from Penny’s legal team, and the defendant was hustled out of the courtroom through a side door.

But Neely’s supporters audibly lamented the outcome, including some who were reported as visibly crying. Earlier Monday, Penny’s defense team said they were concerned about protests outside the lower Manhattan criminal court, claiming that jurors were able to hear chants of “subway strangler” and “murderer” as they deliberated. Wiley said there were protesters from both sides outside. Penny’s acquittal is a significant blow to the reputation of Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought charges against him as protests over Neely’s killing mounted. Penny, 26, was accused of placing Neely, 30, in a chokehold as Neely acted erratically on an F train in SoHo on 1 May 2023.

[...] During the trial, jurors heard from more than 40 witnesses, including passengers who recounted that Neely had shouted he was “willing to die and go to jail” and “someone is going to die today” before Penny restrained him. Another woman on the subway train said she feared for her life after hearing Neely’s “satanic” rant. But no witness claimed that Neely physically touched or lunged at a specific person. The outcome of the trial is unlikely to resolve a debate in the city over safety in the subway and the fate of a troubled man who had clearly been let down by New York’s healthcare services.

What an egregious disgrace of a verdict this is. Daniel Penny gets let off for choking Jordan Neely to death.

[muddypolitics]

(via Grand Jury Indicts Daniel Penny in Death of Jordan Neely)

[onlytiktoks]

[odinsblog]

T/W death

This is incredibly sad.

Despite the glaringly passive voice used by the New York Times, Jordan Neely, did not just “die” all on his own. He was murdered as onlookers calmly watched for 15 minutes!

He was not a physical nor an imminent threat to anyone, and most importantly, he did not touch or assault anyone.

Mr. Neely himself was assaulted and subsequently murdered.

Please note how the media framed him as “aggressive” while hailing the murderer as “a hero”? If their races were reversed, do you think the narrative would be the same? Do we think that the NYPD would have released a Black man who strangled a white person to death? Would the bystanders have stood by if their races were reversed???

Yelling at people, or more accurately, having a mental health crisis on a public subway train is not a crime punishable by death.

The NYPD let the as-yet unnamed murderer go free, but he needs to be tried for premeditated murder. He had 15 long, agonizing minutes to reconsider his violence and stop choking Mr. Neely to death. But he didn’t.

Over the last several decades Fox News, the GOP and the NRA have turned America into a more uncivilized country, where the police and white people in general are encouraged to project their violent imaginations onto others, and they are just itching for an opportunity to play the aggrieved victim turned “hero” who casually murders someone else in cold blood—especially if that someone else is not white.

[weeby-monster-the-bastard]

this is important to talk about regardless of my skin color. BIPOC should be allowed to live. they shouldn't be scared they may never see another day. that police, a person meant to put their life on the line for their safety will kill them for being human just on the tone of their skin. they should be allowed to walk out and not be afraid. they shouldn't be afraid to go to work and not come back. afraid of their kids going somewhere and not coming back because a police officer decided their skin is a threat. their pain is valid. it shouldn't be fetishized or taken lightly. shouldn't be accused of something they didn't commit and fucking die for NOTHING. their screams and pleas weren't silent so we shouldn't be either. BIPOC LIVES MATTER! BLACK LIVES MATTER! JUSTICE FOR JORDAN NEELY! JUSTICE FOR MARCELLUS WILLIAMS! AND JUSTICE FOR ALL THE BIPOC LIVES TAKEN BY POLICE!

[steveyockey]

Imagine this scenario from scratch. Imagine some God's-eye view of it. Not as it actually happened, in the end, but from the beginning. There is a place full of people. Into this place comes a person who has nowhere to live; who is hungry and thirsty and tired and in obvious distress; who very probably, like a huge number of Americans, including many without permanent residences, suffers from mental illness. Go ahead and grant that this person—homeless, hungry, thirsty, tired, stretched just as thin as those conditions might stretch any person—is behaving erratically; that their comportment might disturb others. So: Who is vulnerable here? Who is in the greatest need of help? What is the actual problem? How might this small ad hoc instantiation of community solve it?

I'm struggling to put this into words. I can't tell if it's because what I'm trying to express is ludicrous or because it's so dully obvious that I've never bothered to actually think of how to say it before. Sometimes you have something that somebody else needs more than you do, and you can afford to spare it, and the easiest thing in the world is just to give it to them. In that moment, to have what you can give them is, itself, a gift, a thing to be thankful for. In my lifetime this society has seemed ever more fanatically opposed to that possibility, and ever more committed to the idea that of all the things a vulnerable person might legitimately need, help—simple material help—is never one of them. But, like, how many people were on that train? How come nobody just, like, offered Jordan Neely a swig from their water bottle? Or, hell, tried to pry off the guy literally strangling him to death right there on the floor? Did any of them have anything at all they could give to the person first suffering, and then just straight-up dying, right in front of them?

Thirty years is no time at all. Jordan Neely was a squishy little toddler yesterday, a gangly kid 10 minutes ago. At 30 he had no place to live. He was hungry and thirsty and tired and upset. He was experiencing a whole stack of separate crises piled onto each other. He walked into a crowded subway car carrying those crises; one of the people there decided that the problem, in that situation, wasn't that Jordan Neely was hungry or thirsty or tired, or that he was in obvious distress, but rather that on top of those other things he was also breathing, and killed him. Somebody else took their phone out and recorded it. That was Jordan Neely's whole and only life. It ended when he walked into a room full of people, homeless and hungry and thirsty and tired, and they helped themselves to his silence.

[sirfrogsworth]

Whenever I think about Jordan Neely and his death by 15 minute chokehold, I can't help but think of all the anti-mask dipshits who were aggressive and threatening and scary and how retail workers were able to resolve these encounters without violence.

Would conservatives have reacted the same way if someone had choked the above dipshit to death?

Or would they have considered him a warrior against masking tyranny who was murdered by woke leftists?

I have actually studied the sleeper hold. Which is what I think that marine on the subway was attempting. If you do it properly, you can cause someone to go unconscious by restricting blood flow to the brain. They go limp, you can secure them, and they wake up a few minutes later with a headache. But this hold is usually effective within 15-30 seconds. If they don't pass out by then, you are probably doing it wrong or it just isn't effective on that particular individual.

He should have changed his restraint tactics once he realized the sleeper was not working. And I cannot imagine a marine who was clearly familiar with grappling martial arts would be unaware of this. And I also can't imagine he didn't know a variety of other techniques to safely restrain someone. Especially with 2 other people helping him.

After that first minute, he knew he was performing a dangerous, life threatening hold. If you know the sleeper hold, you KNOW it restricts blood flow to the brain. And any chokehold is dangerous due to the fragility of the throat and neck. There is no way he didn't have that knowledge. Maybe he didn't think he was going to kill Neely, but he definitely knew it was a possibility. It is common sense that restricting blood flow for long periods of time is very not good.

Not to mention the fact that restraining Neely was probably unnecessary in the first place. As the video above demonstrates, it is entirely possible to resolve situations like this without resorting to physical tactics.

This was murder.

No one knew Neely's criminal history. You cannot justify a public execution retroactively. If I randomly shot someone in the street and find out later they were a rampant shoplifter, I don't get a free pass for my actions. I don't see how this is any different.

I think this all feeds into this hero fantasy many conservatives have in their minds. They love the concept of self defense. Some of them actively wish for their homes to be invaded so they can shoot someone without consequence. They crave this "justified" murder. That is why the concept of the "good guy with a gun" is so prevalent in gun culture.

But in reality, self defense is usually very murky. It is rarely the black and white set of circumstances where the good guy kills the bad guy and is a hero.

In some cases, the good guy with the gun actually makes things worse. They provoke someone into shooting who was hoping to only threaten with their gun. And then a lot of people end up hurt or killed when just letting the person get away would have had no casualties.

Doing nothing is sometimes the safest action in a potentially dangerous situation.

In the end, I think all of this praise and admiration for the "good samaritan" that choked someone for 15 minutes is just another attempt to validate dubious instances of self defense.

Self defense almost always has nuance and complication and they want to push these narratives into a simplistic realm, making these cases less likely to have any consequences.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Reminder that threatening to kill a carriage full of people is not a matter of "freedom of speech".

If you think it is, you don't understand freedom of speech, and no one ever needs to pay any attention to anything you say, ever.

[nando161mando]

Jordan Neely’s Death and the War on the Poor with AOC

[embraceyourdestiny]

absolutely insane that a white person can literally be filmed fully murdering a person and nothing happens to them without SEVERELY disrupting the lives of the people making the decision and even then the murderer will still be given a light sentence. America is a fucking nightmare

[permian-tropos]

I have to study for this job but I feel terrible about it now actually. I feel like I need to be downtown.

[slumbering-shadows]

hell world

this man is facing manslaughter charges for MURDERING Jordan Neely. He freely, knowingly and intentionally murdered somebody, in broad daylight with dozens of witnesses, and all he's facing are manslaughter charges. Because the man he murdered was homeless, and that made people uncomfortable, so apparently it's A-OKAY TO DO THAT.

his lawyers are confident he won't even be actually charged with the manslaughter.

[cyarsk52-20]

Texas governor Gregg A-Butt abbott & republicans: “We have to solve the mental health issue” Also, Greg Abbott, republicans, Mayor Adams, and Governor Hochul: it’s perfectly fine choke to death anyone with a mental health issue

Texas and New York: y’all could had beto O’Rourke, tish james and Maya Wiley respectively.

[memenewsdotcom]

Protests over Jordan Neely death

[cosmicanger]

in response to this — “New: Daniel Penny, the man who choked and killed Jordan Neely, has released a statement through his attorneys”

^^^^ “state & vigilante violence increasingly take the form of administrative care--"mental health care". conservatorship, "wellness checks," involuntary holds, state-mandated drug prog. all adopt the cloak of "care" to kill poor/disabled black folks. his lawyers studied this playbook.”

[dixiedingo]

I think what's particularly upsetting about the Jordan Neely case is that. I knew him. Not like personally but I knew someone exactly like him. My mom. And my mom sacrificed her sanity for this country and like, developed schizophrenia after her service. So we couldn't help her because she thought we were the enemy.

I was growing up at 11 having negotiations with my mom to deliver her pizza downtown because she refused to come home because she was convinced she was being spied upon.

The NYPD found her one day completely nude, walking and talking to herself in times Square. The VA didn't do shit even after this and she just kinda. Eventually walked back to SC.

No one gave a shit about her when she was homeless. All we wanted was someone, anyone, to try and get her help. The VA swore they'd help us but they never did. There was always some law or some weird clause so they couldn't just take her to the mental hospital. And when they did, she would just sign herself out. Because she used to be a paralegal pre-schizophrenia so she could gain the system during brief moments of like. Clarity.

My mom was also murdered like Jordan's mom. She was mugged and double tapped, made to look like a hit and run. A navy soldier, a sister, mother, was killed over $700 she didn't have.

And so when I see people defending the guy who killed him, when I see people calling him a criminal, when I see people demonizing him, I think about how close my mom was to being Jordan.

The NYPD did not have to call us. They did not have to tell us where she was but they did it because they realized she had a family. People who cared. And I see people talking about how the marine did the right thing and my heart breaks because I imagine my own mom, getting loud and angry because of an episode. And I can't think anymore because I realize that could've been the reality.

Everyone sees a homeless person and they see a moral failing. I see a homeless person and I understand that was someone's sibling, parent, child. That person had a life before they got on the streets. And if someone, anyone, gave enough of a shit maybe they'd be better off. And I have to swallow bitter tears knowing that I can't help them, and the government won't help them, and people who absolutely have the wealth won't help them. And so they will die.

Mental illness, homelessness, houselessness, these things do not give a shit about age, social standing, color, etc. They just happen. And for people to be openly defending and demonizing Jordan for the audacity of being loud and black on a train in public. That makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me taste blood, I get so angry. Because I know and understand that Jordan didn't ask to be ill. He didn't ask to be poor. He didn't ask to be arrested and he didn't ask to be attacked. He was human.

We're all fucking human man.