Hoax or Murder? White Man Not Arrested but Praised After Murdering Unconscious Black Man in "15 Minute Chokehold" on NYC Subway. “ExMarine” Knew Deadly Force Could Cause Death. Not Charged by Borg DA
/TYPICALLY, WHEN DOZENS of people witness someone killing another person in a public space, one of two things happens: The killer is arrested or they flee. The tabloids might dub them “subway killer.”
None of that happened on Monday after a 24-year-old white former U.S. Marine whose name has not been made public killed 30-year-old Jordan Neely, who was Black, on an F train in the NoHo area of Manhattan. The 24-year-old man did not flee. He was not arrested. And the tabloids — along with more respected news outlets — issued glowing appraisals of him.
The unusual treatment may have had something to do with the victim: Neely was unhoused and had a history of mental illness.
Police took the subway rider into custody briefly for questioning then released him shortly afterward.
For advocates working on issues of poverty and police abuses, there was a simple reason why Neely’s killing happened the way it did and why, in the aftermath, nothing seemed out of the ordinary when the killer was set free: fearmongering rhetoric about homelessness and crime from Democratic New York leaders Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams.
The treatment of the 24-year-old man showed how police identified with the intervention against an unhoused person. Neely’s entire medical and criminal history were released to the public, but police won’t give out any information about the alleged assailant. “They’re acting as if this Marine was a member of the force,” said Beth Haroules, director of disability justice litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union, who testified in February before the New York City Council against Adams’s plan to forcibly hospitalize mentally ill people and remove them from subways. [MORE]