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On May 1, 2023, Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old black homeless man, was killed by Daniel Penny, a 24 year-old white ex-Marine, placing him in a chokehold while they were riding the F train on the New York City Subway.

According to police, witnesses said Neely was acting in a "hostile and erratic" manner, and yelled that he was hungry and thirsty, and that he would hurt anyone on the train. One witness, freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vázquez, said that Neely did not physically attack anyone, but other witnesses reported Neely throwing trash at passengers. Penny approached Neely from behind, placing him in a chokehold until Neely was unconscious. According to Vázquez, the chokehold lasted for 15 minutes, three minutes of which are recorded. An onlooker alerted Penny that Neely had defecated, a warning sign he was dying; the onlooker then said "You're gonna kill him." Neely was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital, where he was pronounced dead; according to some sources, Neely died on the subway car's floor. Police questioned Penny, but he was released without charges.

The incident was recorded on video by Vázquez. The death is being investigated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. On May 3, the medical examiner's office determined the manner of death to be homicide, stating that Neely died from "compression of neck (chokehold)". On May 5, it was reported a grand jury would meet to determine if charges should be pressed against Penny.

Incident

External video
Video of the last three minutes of the chokehold (03:48) on Facebook – taken by freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vázquez

The incident took place on the New York City Subway in Manhattan. According to Vázquez, Neely started "to make a speech" while riding a northbound F train, screaming "I don't have food, I don't have a drink, I'm fed up. I don't mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I'm ready to die." He then "took off his jacket, a black jacket that he had, and threw it on the ground." Witnesses also reported Neely throwing trash at passengers. After Neely threw his jacket down, Penny walked up to Neely from behind and placed him into a chokehold.

Vázquez then stated he "heard a thump" and saw the men on the floor. The train stopped at the Broadway–Lafayette Street station, where it remained while two men grabbed Neely's arms and legs. According to Vázquez, Neely was moving throughout the chokehold, stating that he was "defending himself all the time, all the time he moved, he tried to remove his arm" and "when they had it on his side, he kept kicking, so we thought that's him defending himself." Another rider, Johnny Grima, said that he poured water on Neely's forehead during the chokehold but was told to stop by Penny. At 2:29 p.m., one passenger warned the men they should check Neely had not defecated, saying, "You don't want to catch a murder charge. You got a hell of a chokehold, man." Neely was then motionless and placed on his side. The same passenger then said, "He's all right. He ain't gonna die." The New York Police Department received a call about a fight on the train at 2:25 p.m., and arrived before 2:30 p.m., administering first aid to an unconscious Neely. The New York City Fire Department received its call for help at 2:39 p.m., arriving at 2:46 p.m..

According to some sources, when attempts were made to revive him inside the subway car, Neely was already dead.

People involved

Jordan Neely

Jordan Neely was a 30-year-old African-American man. He grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey. In 2007, when Neely was 14 years old, his mother was murdered by a man with whom she had been in an abusive relationship. Her body was found in a suitcase on the side of the Henry Hudson Parkway. Neely was called to testify at the trial. According to his aunt, he developed depression, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorder after the murder of his mother. Neely was placed in foster care as a youth.

As early as 2009, Neely was a locally-known Michael Jackson impersonator, performing in Times Square, on subways, and in subway stations. He was reputed to be a talented dancer. Neely struggled with homelessness; he had worked with the Bowery Residents' Committee to attempt to find permanent shelter. Neely was placed on a roster maintained by New York City that listed the homeless individuals most in need of assistance and treatment.

According to a law-enforcement official, Neely had been arrested 42 times by NYPD; many of the arrests were for minor violations, but three were for unprovoked assaults on women in the NYC subway. At the time of his death, he was subject to a 15-month alternative to incarceration program after pleading guilty in February 2023 to felony assault of a 67-year-old woman, whom he punched as she exited a train station in November 2021, breaking her nose and fracturing an orbital bone. Under the terms of the program, Neely was to live in a treatment facility in the Bronx. He had a warrant issued for his arrest after he missed a court date to update a judge on his progress and abandoned the treatment facility 13 days after he started the program.

In March 2023, Neely was spotted and taken to a homeless shelter by an outreach worker, who described him as calm and subdued. His last interaction with law enforcement was on April 9, 2023, when he was ejected from a train by police after urinating in front of outreach workers. Five days later, an outreach worker spotted Neely in Coney Island, and noted him as aggressive and incoherent, writing that "He could be a harm to others or himself if left untreated."

Daniel Penny

Daniel Penny is a 24-year-old white former Marine sergeant from Long Island, New York, who choked Neely. Penny had dropped out of college and was looking for work as a bartender in New York City. He had previously worked in a surf shop in North Carolina, near the Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune. Penny hired Thomas Kenniff, a former Republican candidate for district attorney, to represent him.

On May 5, 2023, Penny's attorneys released a statement offering Penny's condolences to Neely's family, stating that Penny "never intended to harm Mr. Neely" and that "hen Mr. Neely began aggressively threatening Daniel Penny and the other passengers, Daniel, with the help of others, acted to protect themselves, until help arrived."

Reactions and protests

Public officials & community

New York City Mayor Eric Adams called Neely's death "tragic," and said "there’s a lot we don’t know about what happened here." He stated that mental health issues played a role in the incident and said that his administration "made record investments in providing care to those who need it and getting people off the streets and the subways, and out of dangerous situations." However, Adams' proposed 2023 city budget proposed municipal workforce cuts, which could impact city agencies that administer food stamps and permanent housing programs. City Council member Tiffany Cabán criticized the response of Adams, stating in an interview that the killing was "the inevitable outcome of the dangerous rhetoric of stigmatizing mental health issues, stigmatizing poverty and the continued bloated investment in the carceral system at the expense of funding access to housing, food and health.” Community activists also criticized Mayor Adams. Jawanza Williams, a director of Voices Of Community Activists & Leaders, said that Adams' "hyper-conservative, fear-mongering rhetoric" had resulted in the deputization of civilians.

In a tweet, New York state Sen. Julia Salazar wrote, "A man named Jordan Neely was choked to death in public on the subway this week while people watched and even cheered. This is horrific. The constant demonization of poor people and people in mental health crisis in our city allows for this barbarism. It is making our city sick." She further labeled the killing as a "lynching." Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote, "Jordan Neely was murdered. But bc Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected w/ passive headlines + no charges. It's disgusting." Gov. Kathy Hochul stated Neely's death was "deeply disturbing." New York City Comptroller Brad Lander stated that "We must not become a city where a mentally ill human being can be choked to death by a vigilante without consequence." Adams rebutted statements from Lander and Cortez as not being "very responsible at the time where we’re still investigating the situation." and called for officials to wait on investigations from Bragg and law enforcement officials. Nikole Hannah-Jones, founder of The 1619 Project stated that it was a case of "a vigilante killing someone whose behavior he found distasteful".

Other officials expressed frustration that DA Bragg's office had not already criminally charged Neely's killer, claiming that if the assailant had been black, the situation would have unfolded differently. New York City Council speaker Adrienne Adams stated, "The initial response by our legal system to this killing is disturbing and puts on display for the world the double standards that black people and other people of color continue to face." In an interview with the The Guardian, community activist Johnny Grima stated, "Jordan Neely to is a piece of garbage. And it’s fucking sad ’cause he isn’t a piece of garbage. Had it been a white woman that was choked for 15 minutes, probably would’ve been arrested on sight." Grima, who himself is formerly homeless, can be seen in the video of Neely's death saying "Don’t put him on his back though, man. He might choke on his own spit.”

New York City media reported that residents were divided over the case, with some expressing sympathy for Penny and seeing his restraint of Neely as heroic. The New York Times quoted a 64-year-old interior designer from Brooklyn who said, of Neely, “I feel sorry for the man, but he was acting threatening,” explaining that she thought Penny was a hero and that his actions had served the interests of justice.

Protests

Two days after Neely's killing, a vigil-turned-protest was held inside the Broadway–Lafayette Street station, in which the arrest and charge of the then unnamed man who choked Neely was demanded. The protests also spread to the city streets; a protest in front of the Manhattan district attorney's office was set for May 4, and another protest was held in Brooklyn on the same day. Several organizations, including Black Lives Matter, NAACP and Amnesty International USA, have called for accountability in Neely's killing. On May 5, 2023, protests took place across the city, including locations such as the Broadway-Lafayette Street station, Washington Square Park, and outside the Manhattan district attorney's office, calling for criminal charges to be brought. Protests were again held on May 6, 2023 at various locations in Manhattan.

Family

Neely's father Andre Zachery spoke with the New York Daily News on May 5, 2023, stating, "Obviously he was calling for help…He wasn’t out to hurt nobody. He was a good kid and a good man too. Something has to be done. That man, he’s still walking around right now. My son didn’t deserve to die because he needed help."

Comparisons to other cases

The incident drew comparisons to the killing of Eric Garner in 2014, an incident which pushed the New York City Police Department to ban officers from placing individuals in chokeholds during arrest. The Rev. Al Sharpton also compared the case to the Bernhard Goetz case in 1984, stating, "We cannot end up back to a place where vigilantism is tolerable. It wasn't acceptable then and it cannot be acceptable now." Neely's death was also connected to larger issues around homelessness and mental health.

See also

• 1984 New York City Subway shooting

References

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