Reply to Homeless Man Killed by Fellow Passenger on NYC Subway

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[quote=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.

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

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.

[quote] 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.

[b]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.[/quote][/b]

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

[quote]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.[/quote]

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.

[quote]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.[/quote]

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.  
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