Homeless Man Killed by Fellow Passenger on NYC Subway

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BLM isn’t doing anyone any favors making this a racial incident. It wasn’t.

They are still investigating but it seems like they had three men who really didn’t know what they were doing, the army guy especially. It’s a tough call when someone thinks they’re helping and they do more harm than good.

Just a sad story. I always tell my daughters to stand with their back leaning on the wall and they take Ubers after midnight.

What army guy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neely was a one man crime wave with a rap sheet longer than the tale of two cities. His crimes have included multiple instances of where he punched women in the face, including elderly people. Unfortunately once someone stood up to him it led to his death. The dude should have never been on the streets in the first place, and should have been in jail or a mental institution.

+1000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neely was a one man crime wave with a rap sheet longer than the tale of two cities. His crimes have included multiple instances of where he punched women in the face, including elderly people. Unfortunately once someone stood up to him it led to his death. The dude should have never been on the streets in the first place, and should have been in jail or a mental institution.

Yes, but where are the humane mental institutions that will treat and medicate poor and homeless people that suffer from mental illness or addiction? The answer is they don't exist. Until we build, fund, and staff them the Neely's of the world - 42 arrests, including attempted kidnapping of a 7 year old girl and punching elderly women in the face - will continue to wander the streets and ride the subways. Everyday we ignore them. And occasionally one snaps and pushes someone in front of a subway or stabs a random person and everyone says something must be done and nothing ever is.

This generation of politicians - both democrats and republicans - suck at dealing with real world problems. They are stuck in their ideological bubbles. And in the meantime our cities get progressively worse. Compare crime and quality of life issues from 2013 to now. It's been a bad ten years. And still, nothing meaningful ever gets done. Until we have better leaders with real solutions, more and more people are going to take matters into their own hands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neely was a one man crime wave with a rap sheet longer than the tale of two cities. His crimes have included multiple instances of where he punched women in the face, including elderly people. Unfortunately once someone stood up to him it led to his death. The dude should have never been on the streets in the first place, and should have been in jail or a mental institution.

Yes, but where are the humane mental institutions that will treat and medicate poor and homeless people that suffer from mental illness or addiction? The answer is they don't exist. Until we build, fund, and staff them the Neely's of the world - 42 arrests, including attempted kidnapping of a 7 year old girl and punching elderly women in the face - will continue to wander the streets and ride the subways. Everyday we ignore them. And occasionally one snaps and pushes someone in front of a subway or stabs a random person and everyone says something must be done and nothing ever is.

This generation of politicians - both democrats and republicans - suck at dealing with real world problems. They are stuck in their ideological bubbles. And in the meantime our cities get progressively worse. Compare crime and quality of life issues from 2013 to now. It's been a bad ten years. And still, nothing meaningful ever gets done. Until we have better leaders with real solutions, more and more people are going to take matters into their own hands.

Cities like DC and SF are under full democratic control and could easily afford to fund a couple of these places. They could be examples for other cities about how much better things could be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You know what? We’re on page 35 and just going in boring circles at this point. So let’s cut to the chase:

I don’t much care about the welfare of the drug addicted mentally ill. Not on the subway, not on the sidewalk outside my office, not in their disgusting tents that we’ve apparently just decided to make permanent fixtures in the nation’s capital. And the liberal among you with (allegedly) more empathy need to do better than “thoughts and prayers” that these situations will magically improve. Every single city in the US that has adopted leftist policies toward crime, drugs, homelessness, etc. is an absolute sewer where this stuff is happening at an exponentially increasing rate.

This particular guy was a violent threat to everyone in that subway car. The marine and others who held him down were risking their own lives in public service. As it happens I don’t know how to put a violent man in a choke hold and subdue him, so I likely would have shot him with my CCW if put in the same situation.

Wow. Thanks for just outright admitting it. Statements like yours just make it clear to me how much hate people have for each other in our society these days. You should be loud and proud about your beliefs so that people who have to encounter you can see what they are up against.

Statements like yours show how much contempt you have for normal people trying to navigate the nasty and brutish realities of a society that has abdicated its duties to protect people from crime.

[Anonymous]

Nothing meaningful ever gets done because we keep re-electing 90-year-old people like Chuck grassley to the senate.
My god we need age limits in these places because he's old people haven't lived in that district. They represent in decades

[Anonymous]

I am scared of guns in our society and I'm scared of mental illness and our society...... And I'm very scared when the two of them mix

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothing meaningful ever gets done because we keep re-electing 90-year-old people like Chuck grassley to the senate.
My god we need age limits in these places because he's old people haven't lived in that district. They represent in decades

Lol, so true. But if we get a virus disproportionately affecting the elderly, the whole country shuts down.

[Anonymous]

Today's NYTs has a more balanced look at both men, although the article does not include much new information about the events on the train that day.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/nyregion/jordan-neely-daniel-penny-nyc-subway.html

The reporting points out that contrary to much of what has been reported, Mr. Neely's days as a happy appearing street performer were long gone.

Mr. Neely racked up more than three dozen arrests. Many were of the sort that people living on the street often accrue while homeless, like turnstile-jumping or trespassing. But at least four were on charges of punching people, two of them in the subway system.

Outreach workers noted that Mr. Neely heavily used K2, the powerful, unpredictable synthetic marijuana. In June 2019, an outreach worker noticed that Mr. Neely had lost considerable weight and was sleeping upright. Around that time, he was reported to have banged on a booth agent’s door and threatened to kill her, according to the worker’s notes. Then he was gone.

This is consistent with what family members have said about K2 use.

In November 2021, Mr. Neely’s aggression seemed to peak, when he punched a 67-year-old woman in the street on the Lower East Side, breaking her nose, the police said. He was charged with assault and, awaiting the resolution of his case, spent 15 months in jail, the police said, though his family said the stint was shorter.

He was allowed to avoid further jail time and obtain much-needed treatment in February of this year. The victim of the assault agreed to this disposition, which required Mr. Neely to live in a treatment facility and stay clean for 15 months.

But just 13 days later, he abandoned the facility. Judge Biben issued a warrant for his arrest.

In March, an outreach worker saw him in the subway, neatly dressed, calm and subdued, and got him a ride to a shelter in the Bronx. (The outreach workers typically do not check for arrest warrants when interacting with homeless people.) But a downward spiral followed.

On April 9, when outreach workers approached him in a subway car at the end of the line in Coney Island, Mr. Neely urinated in front of them. When an outreach worker went to call the police, according to a worker’s notes, Mr. Neely shouted, “Just wait until they get here, I got something for you, just wait and see.”

Officers arrived and ejected Mr. Neely from the train, apparently unaware of the arrest warrant.

Five days after that, an outreach worker saw him in Coney Island and noted that he was aggressive and incoherent. “He could be a harm to others or himself if left untreated,” the worker wrote.

Two weeks later, he was riding an F train in SoHo for what would be the last time.

The article goes on to discuss the use of a chokehold, which is taught to new marines as a way to knock out the enemy. However, it is important not to squeeze the person's windpipe, which appears to have been the marine's fatal error.

The entire situation is a tragedy. Mr. Neely should not have died the way he did, but at the same time, outreach workers responsible for his care absolutely believed that he was a threat to himself or others, yet he remained on the street. Beyond threatening subway riders, a person in that condition is a threat to all the vulnerable unhoused or mentally ill people he encounters each day who have nowhere to retreat. To that end, this case is less about race and how we view unhoused people and the mentally ill in general than it is about what happens when a person's mental illness and behavior constitute a real threat to others. I'm not a violent person, so I wouldn't even know what to do if faced with a real danger. I'd be the first to be attacked, probably. But I hate that people are making this about general hatred for unhoused people because all evidence suggests that Mr. Neely was dangerous. There is a very real question of what to do about the minority of unhoused people like Mr. Neely, who are, in fact, violent. Ignoring that issue helps no one.

[Anonymous]

What hasn't been discussed is that Neely was not only dangerous to others but very dangerous. He had punched several people, breaking bones - unlike the movies, one punch can cause serious bodily injury. He had tried to push someone in front of the train earlier. While he had lost weight and was not in good physical condition, he was still dangerous.

The poster upthread who would have defended herself with a gun would be as justified as Penny - so focusing on the correct use of the chokehold is asking the wrong question.

[Anonymous]

I live in Philly. I ignore any homeless person I see and anyone who appears to be approaching me on a walking asking for directions. Too many bad experiences.

[Anonymous]

We need involuntary institutionalization & Singapore-style law enforcement stat

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We need involuntary institutionalization & Singapore-style law enforcement stat

That will never happen in America where individual freedom is valued above all else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need involuntary institutionalization & Singapore-style law enforcement stat

That will never happen in America where individual freedom is valued above all else.

The institutions weren't closed out of respect for individual freedom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neely was a one man crime wave with a rap sheet longer than the tale of two cities. His crimes have included multiple instances of where he punched women in the face, including elderly people. Unfortunately once someone stood up to him it led to his death. The dude should have never been on the streets in the first place, and should have been in jail or a mental institution.

+1. One served his country, the other one was a documented criminal. I feel sorry for one of them in this unfortunate case, and it is not the criminal.