Homeless man on the subway is killed by a passenger. The killer is released without charge by NYPD. Becoming a very divisive topic online.
For my part, I think the actual killing isn’t the story, it’s the years of failed policy around psychiatric health and mentally unfit patients, and the total lack of care they receive if they don’t seek it themselves, which they are often mentally incapable of doing.
It’s a horrible vise that they’re in. On one side you have republicans, who are probably happy to let them starve to keep taxes down. But on the other side you have advocates for their “right” to reject care and live in squalor wit no security.
I do think there is significant meat to the story.
It goes to the complete devaluing of life by some people. The murderer chocked the unhoused man for 15 minutes. It will be excused as self defense when it truly was excessive force with the intention to kill someone.
You don’t apply a sleeper hold after someone has gone limp unless you want to kill the other person.
More so the reaction by some than the killers actions imo. I’ve seen it reported as as 15 minutes, and I’ve seen it reported as 3 minutes, I didn’t watch the video, so I don’t know. There are absolutely people who are just eager for a chance to “legally” engage in violence, like we’ve seen in all these stand your ground shootings. If that was this person’s intentions he should be jailed for murder.
However, it will be a very hard thing to prove, and I doubt a nyc jury would convict. The victim was apparently shouting and threatening people, demanding food. I can easily see how once someone restrains a person they think in mentally unstable, they don’t want to release him until the police arrive and subdue him properly. Without knowing what’s in the killers mind in that situation, hard to say one way or the other.
However the amount of people celebrating the death is sickening. The severely mentally ill homeless are completely dehumanized, and people are going on how they’re happy he’s dead.
Even the governor of NY said something along the lines of “there’s consequences for behavior.”
The whole situation is a breakdown of the social contract. It’s not unexpected that a mentally ill person who can’t feed himself is going to get angry and violent, and of course people will defend themselves from that violence in the way they see fit. But the way NYC just accepts that mentally ill people should live in squalor in the subway, and not receive basic care is the real crime. I have an older adult sister who lives in a group home funded by New York. She is totally incapable of looking after herself. She’s “lucky” that she has advocates who make sure she gets the care she needs. The fact that Neely didn’t have that support condemned him to a life of such extreme desperation, that every day he was alive and neglected by our society is a huge injustice. The fact that it ended in his violent death is just the most sensational part of the story. Everything leading up to it is the more important one.
More sadness. Bad policy leads to bad outcomes. This is a bad outcome. Our society is becoming a place with a lot of bad individual outcomes due to a lot of bad policy.
Plenty of blood to go around. Even as I type this, The People’s House is promoting cuts to the social safety net. We all have a hand in this.
The guy was in true need. He was tired of being hungry and living like an animal. In the midst of opulence. Drives a man crazy.
It’s time to acknowledge our non profits aren’t up to the task. They won’t fix this. They are losing ground.
But at some point we all must bear some of the weight of capitalism. Whatever else you may think about capitalism, it is a game of winners and losers. Losers. Part of the system. There has to be some strategy for dealing with this.
I think strategy #1 is not letting a billion economic migrants into the richest cities in the world.
Strategy #2 might be feeding those that get there somehow.
Strategy #3???
I have to wonder if a trained Marine wanted to kill someone whether he could have found a more efficient way. Depending on the facts, which should come out at trial, manslaughter may be the most appropriate charge.
One has to question his “training.”
Being well trained should allow a “trained marine” to be “more efficient” in not just killing another human but also subduing them. Unless we are supposed to assume that marines are only capable of killing people, regardless of if they are threats and/or lethal force is required.
How can this be a strategy for capitalism. People moving to where the jobs are is an intrinsic component of the system. Hence urbanization, since urban areas have more jobs than rural ones.
Are you arguing for some economic framework other than capitalism?
Yes, that’s a good point. A true libertarian would say that the borders should be completely open, with no rules to control who comes and begs on your doorstep. I don’t see that being possible with winners.
Let’s assume SV’S term economic migrant was internal…folks leaving the country to get jobs in the city. That is a long standing trend. The homeless problem is fueled internally as best I can tell. Our subway victim fits that pattern.
But I’ve long maintained that if we maintain a social safety net, controlling immigration will be necessary. The more we redistribute wealth internally, stricter immigration control is warranted. Just a trade off, can’t have both.
A couple NYT stories tht seem relevant to Jordan Neely.
The city has “outreach” teams that try to talk homeless people into shelter.
For a team’s 27 clients there are nine staffers, including three social workers, a psychiatrist or nurse practitioner and two peer specialists
The teams’ workers meet clients where they are, at shelters and hospitals, train stations and park benches. They go along to court dates and housing interviews and inject them with antipsychotic drugs on street corners.
They buy them chopped-cheese sandwiches and m phones and warm socks — anything to keep clients engaged.
And
Jordan Neely Was on New York’s ‘Top 50’ List of Homeless People at Risk
And
In February, Mr. Neely, who had been in jail on an assault charge for punching a 67-year-old woman and breaking several bones in her face, was released to a residential treatment program, under a plea deal that required him to avoid trouble for 15 months, stay on antipsychotic medication and not abuse drugs.
Two weeks later, he walked out of the facility and did not return, and the arrest warrant was issued.
A grand jury has indicted former U.S. Marine Daniel Penny in connection with the chokehold death of Jordan Neely aboard a subway train.
The exact charges will not be unsealed until Penny appears in court at a later date, the sources said. Penny was initially arrested on a second-degree manslaughter charge.