I know I’ve been slow to post about Jordan Neely’s murder. That’s because I needed time to process the facts and my feelings about what happened. My process generally involves challenging myself on my initial opinion until I land on an opinion that includes the facts and my values.
First, let me say that since we don’t have all the facts yet, I’m not advocating for a first degree murder charge (yet). Right at this moment, we don’t have any witnesses who have claimed that Jordan assaulted anyone. That might change and I will form a different opinion if that happens. I certainly won’t take the choke holder’s word for it. The good news is that there are cameras on the subway so we’re not going to have to rely on witness testimony to see what happened.
The opinion I hold on the forefront of my mind in regard to this incident is that my heart aches for him. He lived a heartbreaking life that ended the way his mother’s did: by being choked to death. When he was 14 years old, his mother was strangled to death by her live-in boyfriend, who stuffed her body in a suitcase and tossed it along a highway like trash. When Jordan was 18, he has to testify against his mother’s murderer. What happened to his mother broke him and that’s all I can think about.
My opinions about the incident are eclipsed by my heartache for him, as should anyone else’s.
Now back to the day he was murdered. I watched the video shot by the reporter on the train because I believe that watching is the least we as the public can do. I saw him in a chokehold for over 2 and a half minutes. He was already in the hold before the video started. I’ve heard that he was in that chokehold for 15 minutes. I don’t know that to be a fact so I’m only going to speak to the 2 1/2 minutes that I personally witnessed.
There’s a reason why the majority of police departments don’t allow chokeholds; they kill people. We all know this, so using a chokehold on another person is completely inexcusable Full.Stop. Using a chokehold on someone means that you don’t care if they die so the choker in this instance is trash.
Knowing that he served as a marine for 4 years makes this even worse. He was ostensibly trained on chokeholds and knew what I had to research to learn. If you do a chokehold “correctly” a person would be rendered unconscious in 8 – 10 seconds. It is still dangerous to do it “correctly”. This asshole had Jordan in a chokehold for at least the 2 1/2 minutes that I witnessed. What we know right now absolutely warrants a manslaughter charge. I am reserving judgement on a murder charge, but even if we have confirmation that Jordan didn’t assault anyone, that’s going to be a difficult charge for the prosecutor to make. We have to start prosecuting these vigilantes because encouraging them by letting them walk with no consequences creates a world that no one should have to live in.
Before he was murdered, Jordan said, “I’m tired already. I don’t care if I go to jail and get locked up. I’m ready to die.” He said he was hungry and thirsty. That doesn’t sound like a dangerous person to me. That sounds like a desperate person who is slowly being killed by society. That sounds like a person who is literally crying out for help. The asshole wanna-be hero in this story has an outsized penchant for fear. He should not be applauded for that.
The right wing media loves to report that Jordan was arrested 42 times. That’s forty-two opportunities that New York City missed to help this man. It was actually many more than 42 opportunities. He was on NYC’s outreach workers’ list of the “top 50”, meaning that that he was among the unhoused who are urgently in need of help. Here’s what they neglected to do during their numerous attempts to help him: give him a home. Providing the unhoused with permanent shelter works. It works. Let me show you again that this fucking works. If the city you live in has tried it and it didn’t work, it’s because of corruption, misuse of funds and crony capitalism. When the money isn’t siphoned off to pay back owner/donors, housing the unhoused with no preconditions works. It works for everyone. Every last member of society benefits by housing the unhoused.
I had brunch with a very dear friend who I absolutely adore yesterday. He’s had encounters on the subway with unhoused people who were having a mental health episode. Those encounters scared the shit out of him so he doesn’t feel that the choker (I REFUSE to use his name) did anything wrong. I can see that perspective, but I don’t share it.
I’m not a fearful person by my nature. I actually rarely have strong split second emotions, and I never have. In any given situation, my brain goes to assessing what’s happening based on what I know.
During that brunch, my friend told me about his friend who lives (or works – I can’t remember which) on the upper west side. His friend does a good amount of humanitarian work so he’s certainly a kind person. He told my friend that when the city put some of the unhoused up in a hotel on the upper west side in the early days of the covid pandemic, he personally witnessed a crime spree. As it happened, I was very familiar with that situation. Our then mayor made the decision to move some of the city’s unhoused people into some of the plethora of empty hotels across the city. One of those hotels was The Lucern, located on the Upper West Side where the primary demographic is fine, white liberals. Here’s what those fine, white liberals did (I encourage you to read the article). They started a Facebook page to band together. They got so much backlash, that they made the page private because that’s what you do when you’re right and righteous; you hide. They insisted that crime was going up in their neighborhood and they saw that crime everywhere. The problem is that the crime they saw was entirely imaginary. They had to imagine crime so that they could tell themselves that they are good people. My friend’s friend imagined crime that wasn’t happening. This is why I always find anecdotal evidence completely worthless. Anecdotal evidence isn’t evidence of anything except what a person thinks they see with their own eyes. It’s total bullshit that I won’t entertain because data is what I rely on to inform myself.
I have also experienced encounters with unhoused people in the middle of a mental health crisis on the subway. I’ve never been afraid. Maybe that’s because I understand that people with mental illnesses are far more likely to be victims of crime than they are perpetrators of crime, and that they’re legitimately frightened all the time. Or maybe it’s because I know that half of our population is two paychecks away from being unhoused and that being unhoused is not a result of a moral failing.
Our culture is seriously diseased in this regard. We fundamentally believe that the unhoused got that way because of something they did so they deserve this. We believe that despite the fact that the vast majority of us are justifiably feeling screwed by our government that only exists to fellate the 1%. I don’t know where the disconnect is in regard to applying what we know to the unhoused. I used to be bothered by the idea of giving an unhoused person money, just to have them spend it on drugs or alcohol. That no longer bothers me. I would medicate the shit out of myself if I had to live on the streets too and so would you.
We see the unhoused as trash that we don’t want in our neighborhoods. We don’t look at them when we walk past them.
And that’s why Jordan Neely was killed and why some applaud him for doing the killing. He was just taking out the trash that we’re afraid of and want to remove from our consciousness.
Here’s what I do when I’m on the subway with someone who is having a mental episode: I either walk away or I feed them. Before the pandemic, I always kept a few protein bars in my purse for just these occasions. I had fallen out of that habit until this happened. I went to Costco yesterday and stocked up. A desperate person is not going to harm you if you treat them like a human being and make even the smallest gesture to help.
Can you imagine what living in a society where you’re invisible all the time and the only interaction you have with other humans is one where you’re seen as trash?
When you see an unhoused person, look at them and say, “Hello”. That simple act of seeing someone as human can help to diminish mental health episodes. If I have food or water on me, I give it to them. The leftovers that are packed up for me after I have a meal seldom make it home with me (don’t forget to ask for utensils when they’re packing up your meal!)
These are human beings with very human stories. Please let that thought be the first one you have when you see an unhoused person.
And please, I beg you – don’t let your fear turn you into the type of person who applauds murdering vigilantes. I promise you that this won’t turn out well for you.
