No Country for Brave Men?

[ajax18]

Jordan Neely matters — but where were progressives when 27 others were killed on the subway?
By Nicole Gelinas

It’s good that New York’s progressive elected officials and transit advocates are outraged by Jordan Neely’s killing on a Manhattan subway train Monday.

Neely’s life mattered — and so did the lives of the 27 other people violently killed on the subway since March 2020.

Where was the progressive outrage then?

It might have prevented the latest death.

Monday afternoon, Neely, 30, was menacing people on an F train in Lower Manhattan, according to witnesses, when another passenger put him in a chokehold.


It’s up to police and prosecutors — and, if it comes to that, a jury — to determine whether this killing was justified self-defense or just another subway murder.

Our progressive politicians aren’t willing to wait.

“Jordan Neely was murdered,” concluded Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, because he was “crying for food.” “People experiencing homelessness, mental illness, hunger, and frustration need and deserve compassion,” not “force,” tweeted city councilwoman Tiffany Caban.

“Does the Mayor, Governor, or any high-ranking MTA official plan to say anything about Jordan Neely’s killing today?” asked the author of a popular subway blog.

It’s good that the progressives are finally interested in a subway killing.

But before Neely’s death, from March 2020 until early April, 27 people lost their lives to murder in the subway, many of them, like Neely, were homeless young people.

Akeem Loney.
Akeem Loney, 32, was murdered by a stranger as he slept on the subway, in November 2021
Street Soccer USA
Before 2019, it took 15 years for New York to rack up 28 murders on the subway, not three.

Where were Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Caban when homeless soccer player Akeem Loney, 32, was murdered by a stranger as he slept on the subway, in November 2021?

Where were they when Claudine Roberts, 44, also sleeping on the subway, was fatally knifed by a stranger earlier that year?

What we know about NYC subway choking victim Jordan Neely
Who is Neely?
Jordan Neely, 30, a homeless man, was strangled aboard a northbound F train just before 2:30 p.m. on May 1, according to police.

He reportedly started acting erratically on the train and harassing other passengers before being restrained and ultimately choked by a straphanger, identified as a 24-year-old Marine from Queens.

The Marine, who was seen on video applying the chokehold, was taken into custody and later released but the DA is mulling charges, which could include involuntary manslaughter, according to experts.

Why is there fallout over Neely’s death?
The city medical examiner ruled Neely’s death a homicide, noting he died due to “compression of neck (chokehold).” This will be weighed during the investigation into whether charges will be brought for Neely’s death.

Neely’s aunt told The Post that he became a “complete mess” following the brutal murder of his mother in 2007. She noted he was schizophrenic while suffering from PTSD and depression.

“The whole system just failed him. He fell through the cracks of the system,” Carolyn Neely said.

Law enforcement sources said Neely had “numerous” arrests on his record, including for drugs, disorderly conduct, and fare beating.

At the time of his death, Neely had a warrant out for his arrest for a November 2021 case in which he was accused of assaulting a 67-year-old woman in the East Village, the sources said.

Mayor Eric Adams has said it’s important for the DA to complete the investigation into Neely’s death and not rush to conclusions.


Oh, yes — Caban, even as four people were killed within a month last fall on the subway, including a union steamfitter and a Citi Field worker separately on their way home from work, was dismissing concerns about subway violence, calling it “a one-in-a-million event.”

In some recent cases, perpetrators have claimed self-defense, perhaps spuriously.

Just in April, an attacker killed 18-year-old Isaiah Collazo aboard a Brooklyn train after Collazo’s friend pulled the emergency brake, sparking a dispute; the attacker’s Legal Aid lawyer claims the dispute escalated to the point where he had to defend himself.

Similarly, last fall, the man who allegedly pushed Heriberto Quintana to his death under a Jackson Heights train claimed the move, during a fight, was “defensive.”

A man who was killed after an argument inside a Queens subway station is being remembered as a devoted husband and loving father of three.
Heriberto Quintana (left) was pushed to his death under a Jackson Heights train after an argument.
OCTOBER 18, 2022 ELMHURST, NY
Carlos Garcia is walked out of the 110 PCT in Elmhurst, NY, Garcia is the alleged subway pusher who allegedly pushed Heriberto Quintana, 48 on to the subway tracks.
Carlos Garcia walked out of the 110 precinct after allegedly pushing Quintana his death.

Because, in the latest case, Neely was black and the alleged perpetrator appears to be white, the progressives are all now screaming “Bernie Goetz,” after the illegally armed man who shot and wounded four people menacing him on the subway in 1984.

“We cannot end up back to a place where vigilantism is tolerable,” Al Sharpton says.

Actually, the Goetz incident wasn’t that unusual. Self-defense, or the claim of it, was common in the 1970s, 1980s, and early-1990s high-crime subways.

In 1979, a 63-year-old man stabbed and killed a 23-year-old who, he said, had tried to rob him.

In 1990, two people died in alleged subway self-defense incidents.

Just like in the latest case, the press and pols only found Goetz interesting because he was white, and his assailants were not.

What kept killings, including purported self-defense killings, on the subways low after the early 1990s? Low crime.

In 1990, with 26 murders on the subway, riders were on edge.

That was the year Bill Bratton launched broken-windows policing underground, stopping low crimes before they became big ones, and crime fell.

By 2019, with one or two killings a year on the subways, riders felt safe.

But now, with killings back up to double-digit numbers annually last year for the first time since the early 1990s, people are scared again.

Neely, with a long history of disorderly and violent behavior, is just the latest example of a trend we’ve seen for three years: disorder escalates.

Whether Neely’s death was justified or not is less important than whether we could have prevented it.

Yes, we could have, by keeping subways as safe as they were in 2019.

Ensuring order on the subway means that Neely wouldn’t have been able to act in a way that made people scared; it also makes it less likely that a fellow passenger would react in the same way to feeling scared.

Violent subway crime, though lower than it was during last year’s horrific fall, is still 28% higher than it was in 2019.

Progressives needed to care about all subway victims to save the one who, sadly, fit their desired narrative of “vigilantism.”

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan’s Institute’s City Journal.

[Vēritās]

No, Jordan Neely doesn't matter to Republicans or white supremacists.

Neely's murder is important because unlike most murders, this one was filmed for the whole world to witness. And the murderer is being praised by the Republican party as a hero. That's why this matters. You're literally bending over backwards trying to justify his killing by bringing up past criminal accusations and trying to recreate the incident as if he posed an imminent threat to people.

This red herring about "oh what about all these other crimes" is just stupidity run amok.

[Vēritās]

None of the above makes sense in light of the fact that: NYPD: Violent crime down in first 3 months of 2023!

Can you ever stop making a fool of yourself?

From what I can see, there are four cities in welfare queen Ron DeSentis' Florida that have higher violent crime rates than New York City, and three that have higher property crime rates than New York City.

Curious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U ... crime_rate

But FOX news doesn't highlight any of those cities or their crimes, so the idiots on the Right actually buy into this fake narrative about NY and Chicago being a haven for Democrats and criminals.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Brave man:



Shot a mall because … ? note the vest - RWDS is Right-wing death squad

- Doc

[ajax18]

Didn’t a white guy shoot up that mall in Texas?

- Doc

A white guy named Mauricio Garcia whose parents needed an interpreter to speak with the police? Did he have a southern accent as well? Maybe you should go ahead and memory hole this case. It cuts against your preferred narrative and doesn't fit your worldview.

[Doctor Steuss]

Trumplican Proud Boy, Jeremy Bertino wearing the same patch as the Texas shooter.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Didn’t a white guy shoot up that mall in Texas?

- Doc

A white guy named Mauricio Garcia whose parents needed an interpreter to speak with the police? Did he have a southern accent as well? Maybe you should go ahead and memory hole this case it cuts against your preferred narrative and doesn't fit your worldview.

Right here. It says he’s white:



- Doc

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

It could be this white guy:



Note the hand:



So, Ajax18, how do you feel about RWDS neo-Nazis killing people here in America?

- Doc

[ajax18]

Maybe the Neonazis have listened to your critiques and decided to become more inclusive?

This seems like the old liberal trick of counting hispanic crimninals as white to help pad the stats to their narrative.

[Kishkumen]

This incident is just awful. Neely clearly needed treatment and help that he wasn't getting. Heaven only knows what was going through the mind of the vet, Daniel Penny, who put him in a chokehold. Clearly he should not have done it, but I doubt he was thinking clearly, and at this point I don't know that anyone can confidently say that he was motivated by racism. It sounds to me like Neely was unhinged.