I was gratified to see that David French’s take on the death of Jordan Neely as expressed in his New York Times column was much the same as mine:
Behind every statistic is an individual case, and it’s not hard to see how the law failed Neely. He had been arrested more than three dozen times, largely for minor transgressions, though in four cases for punching people, twice in the subway. He was on a list maintained by the city of the 50 homeless people in greatest need of urgent assistance. Most notably, in November 2021, Neely punched and seriously injured a 67-year-old woman as she exited the subway. An assault of that kind is profoundly dangerous, and any person who commits such an act should face meaningful consequences.
Neely spent 15 months in jail while the case awaited resolution, but ultimately he was not sentenced to prison. Instead he was told to report to a treatment facility, where he was to remain for 15 months and stay drug-free. He left after 13 days. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but in spite of subsequent encounters with outreach workers and at least one with the police, he was not taken back into custody.
Think of the many failures that put Neely on the train that day. Treatment efforts were inadequate. The sentence for his unprovoked assault did not match the severity of the crime — and, in any case, it was not enforced. When he walked away from the facility, the police failed to arrest him again. One can both be troubled by the problems of mass incarceration and recognize that just sentences for violent crimes should remove the perpetrators from the streets for substantial periods.
In short, Neely should not have been in that subway car; he should have still been in the treatment facility or in jail. But he was on the subway, and his conduct was deeply disturbing.
My question is what was the rush? Practically nothing can be accomplished in 13 days. You can barely diagnose a mentally ill person in that amount of time let alone treat him or her.
Is it that the system is so over-burdened? Is is that those responsible cannot be bothered? Is it that there are much more serious matters that require urgent attention? More serious than life and death?
I’ll repeat what I’ve said before. Whether Mr. Penny is convicted or acquitted, I sincerely hope that the matter does not conclude there. There are many other parties who are just as responsible for Mr. Neely’s death as Daniel Penny and they shouldn’t be allowed to escape scot free.
Our approach to mental health issues is fragmented and generally poorly done. I would assume that he was committed to the institution so rather than say he left it should say he escaped. A warrant was issued but not acted upon. Just on the police side my experience has been that the police often overreact or under react. Training on how to deal with the mentally is highly variable and my impression is that most police dont really like it. During the arguments about differently funding the police it was suggested we might be better off having either specialty police with more extensive mental health training or auxiliaries who would deal with most mental health issues. That’s largely not going to happen since the right called it defunding so the police response to mentally ill people isn’t going to change in most places.
That leaves the long term issue of what to do with mentally ill who have repeated usually small conflicts that lead to arrest. Some of these people will escalate. Again, we dont have a good system for handling these people. Maybe we need special courts? We have special courts for tax issues. Some of these people may benefit from treatment but some need jail time. Perhaps courts with expertise could better sort this out than some random judge in office because of their political beliefs.
Steve
So, how would the news reports have been written or, for that matter, this thread’s observations altered, should Penny had missed the subway that day, and Neely’s hostile rants and threats culminated in killing a passenger? Would there still be such a focus on Neely’s ignored mental health issues, or would the horrific murder of an innocent, whose only crime was being in the wrong place as the target of someone’s delusional behavior, be the headline of this event?
IMO, if a passenger had died that day at the hands of a mentally ill person, there would have been a very small paragraph in a newspaper simply acknowledging the passing of this unfortunate bystander. The people who chose to just stand around, doing nothing, may not have even been mentioned, because disengagement is more common than personal involvement in aborting criminal behavior.
There were 10 murders in the NYC subway last year. All were extensively covered in the media. Overall deaths were up last year, but the majority were deaths associated with voluntary actions, like subway surfing. Google Michelle Go as an example. If it bleeds it leads.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/02/nyc-subway-track-deaths-soar-driven-by-social-media-dares/#
No idea what happens if Penny wasn’t there, neither do you. Maybe the world ends. More likely one of the other passengers who helped restrain the guy takes the head and shoulders area. They may or may not have chosen to use a chokehold.
Steve
Steve, That’s a link to the NY Post, jeered earlier for honestly reporting on the Biden lap top story. IMO, they are a credible, honest and less biased news source. However, where are similar stories posted, about subway crime, by The NY Times. Washington Post, LA times. ——>. Nada. However, thereâ€# lots of newsprint available from these sources to sensationalize the Neely death.
What one does know about Penny, is that he is about to undergo the gauntlet of an unfair justice system because he stood up and took action to help another passenger on the train. Afterwards, he tried to help the man he subdued. Now, he is being persecuted and prosecuted while Neely is being lionized as a “victim.â€
New Yorker article says Neely was “involuntarily hospitalized” at Belluvue on the forensic-psychiatry floor where inmates from jail or Rikers Island are treated. And then he walked out of the hospital “like so many other patients.” Further down it says the average stay at the psychiatric unit (perhaps not the same as “forensic-psychiatry”) is thirteen days because there are not enough beds, so presumably some sort of triage is in place.
Something is certainly missing there; if he was involuntarily committed to a place where prisoners are kept, he shouldn’t just walk out. If he was just “told” to go to a place that would do what it could within a short period of time, the criminal justice system just wanted him out from their responsibility. Perhaps his jail time was comparable to what a prison sentence would be. Really the mental health issue should have been flagged at the outset, which makes me suspect that they were intermittent or not presenting in a jailed setting.
The system failed Jordan Neely, sure. I’m guessing that from the moment his mother was murdered to the time he became a presence on the streets he was on his own, mental-health wise.
Regardless, according to Juan Vasquez, the guy who filmed the whole thing, this is what happened: Neely got on the train, starting yelling that he didn’t have food and water and he was tired and didn’t care if he went to jail. He threw his jacket down, some people moved away and then Penny approached him from behind, put him a chokehold, and then choked him to death.
So far, we’ve heard nothing about Penny. No friends, no associates. He’s 24 and yet there’s zero presence on other people’s social media in NYC, which is weird. He seems not to exist as a person. I take the trains every day. What Neely did is not at all common. I can imagine being startled by it. But I can’t imagine interpreting his behavior as a reason to come up and put someone in a chokehold. It’s not a normal response.
Some other reports suggested he threatened people, so we dont really know what happened which means an investigation is correct. If we was just yelling manslaughter is probably appropriate. If he threatened people then his actions are more justified. Except for jan who was there and saw the whole thing and knows exactly what happened.
Part of that investigation needs to look at Penny’s history. Did he, like the guy in Texas Abbott wants to pardon, threaten to kill someone 30 minutes before doing so.
Steve
PD- We now call them behavioral health units where I live. Anyway, on all of the wards where they keep pts who are on an involuntary commitment, what it sounds like Neely would have had, the wards are kept locked. People cant just walk out. Once, several years ago, staff got overpowered and keys were taken so two guys got out. They were quickly caught. The NYC thing sounds odd to me.
Steve
Except for jan who was there and saw the whole thing and knows exactly what happened
You sound like you were there too, Steve, considering how sympathetically you portray Neely from afar – a repeat offender (44 arrests) of both small and serious offenses. The fact that Neely demonstrated such erratic, unpredictable behavior one couldn’t judge if he was or was not a danger to those around him. It’s understandable then that people were reportedly “scared†as they didn’t know how far Neely would go with his threats. For someone like you, days later, to second-guess a less forceful way to subdue a hostile, out-of-control man, during a split second intervention, is an abstract cerebral analysis of a tremulous event experienced in real time by only Penny and others on the train. Furthermore, video of Neely being held down showed two men helping with hands on assistance. Why are they not part named or charged?
Sure jan. What I actually said was this.
“Some other reports suggested he threatened people, so we dont really know what happened which means an investigation is correct. If we was just yelling manslaughter is probably appropriate. If he threatened people then his actions are more justified.”
I specifically acknowledge I dont know what happened and opine on appropriate actions depending upon what is found in the investigation.
I keep suggesting it is appropriate to investigate so we can figure out what really happened but you keep insisting you know what the guy did and it was totally justified.
Steve
What I’m disagreeing with you on, Steve, is how a hostile, mentally unhinged man should be seen as more the combatant, initiating actions that eventually led to his demise, rather than the victim. Furthermore, Penny should have been brought before a grand jury before he was arrested for anything. However, it seems these days people are deemed guilty until they can prove their innocence. – a completely opposite stance than in days where more reason and fairness prevailed.
Also, it is this very type of situation that confuses people as to whether they should help others or ignore their plights. It’s why so many police have either left their jobs or simply stand down in the midst of a violent situation. For, it takes more courage and risk to insert yourself in an explosive, unpredictable situation than to turn your back and completely disengage yourself from it.
If all he did was stand and yell, then he was the victim. You dont get to kill people because they are loud. If we do then crying babies on airplanes are in trouble. If he threatened people then its different. We dont know what happened. I assume the police did investigate and they thought what the guy did was not deemed a threat, but a jury will get to decide.
Steve