Posted on 05/04/2023 7:00:18 AM PDT by Heartlander
In an incident sadly familiar to many New Yorkers, a man living on the streets with a long history of mental illness started screaming, acting erratically, and threatening the people sharing his subway car earlier this week. “I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison,” screamed the 30-year-old Jordan Neely, who had 44 arrests under his belt and an outstanding warrant for felony assault, as he flailed around throwing items of his clothing. “I’m ready to die!”
In response, a 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran put Neely in a chokehold, incapacitating him and releasing him after he stopped struggling and passed out. A freelance reporter who took video of the incident, Juan Alberto Vazquez, told news outlets that no one on the train initially thought Neely was in any worse shape than being unconscious, but by the time the police who met the train at the station took him to a nearby hospital, Neely was pronounced dead.
Police questioned the young man, whose name they did not make public, but released him without charges pending an investigation. In the next 36 hours, the usual suspects began to gin up the outrage machine. Readers online lambasted The New York Times for not immediately declaring Neely a murder victim and characterized the incident as having racist implications; Neely is black, and the Marine is white. Governor Kathy Hochul declared the case “troubling.” AOC tweeted, “Jordan Neely was murdered” and declared that funding the police is “militarized” and “disgusting.” By the end of the week, it’s likely Jordan Neely will be on the front of every paper, forcing the country to consider whether erratic and threatening behavior from someone clearly out of his mind justifies the application of force in self-defense.
In a famous 1984 case that made headlines at the peak of New York’s last crime-ridden era, a jury was asked to consider whether pulling out a firearm and shooting four men in a subway car was a “reasonable” response to being panhandled for five dollars. The context: Was it fair for Bernie Goetz to assume he was about to be violently mugged?
One of the men shot confessed from his hospital bed that his three companions were, in point of fact, planning to rob Goetz, calling him “easy bait.” Two of them were carrying screwdrivers in their pockets. But because the would-be muggers were black, and Goetz was white, the case was painted by media figures and self-described radical lawyers like William Kunstler as the actions of a crazed and racist vigilante. Protestors stood outside the courtroom chanting “Bernhard Goetz, you can’t hide; we charge you with genocide.”
But during a record-breaking crime wave, the average American was sick of being told that his desire to go about his business without constant fear of violence and robbery was somehow illegitimate. A strong majority of Americans polled at the time supported Goetz’s actions, and fully two-thirds agreed he had acted in self-defense. Radio lines were inundated with calls pronouncing him a hero.
Goetz was acquitted of attempted murder by a jury that had been in that same subway car one too many times, a public fed up with having to accept muggings, stabbings, drug dealing, and general danger and disorder as an everyday consequence of living in the city. Six of twelve members of Goetz’s jury had themselves been the victims of street crime.
The breakdown of law and order, and the revolving door of progressive policies that put criminals, the insane, and the drug-addled back on the street, has cost New Yorkers their quiet confidence that they can go about their business in peace. Contra the chorus of scolding liberals online, many of whom turn out to be living in wealthy enclaves anyway, ordinary people are not content to be screamed at, threatened, spat on, and generally alarmed by often-criminal lunatics just one voice in their heads away from a stabbing spree. If the state refuses to maintain the law, and decent citizens have to accept fearing for their lives as the price of a commute, the steady flow of people and businesses away from states like New York aren’t the only consequence.
Jordan Neely never should have been in that subway car. He had more than 40 prior arrests and an active arrest warrant for felony assault. His death is not the fault of the brave young man who acted in his own defense and in the defense of everyone else around him, but on politicians and district attorneys who would rather chase plaudits from activist groups than maintain the most basic semblance of law and order. It is on those who give speeches about compassion but leave addicts and the insane on the streets to be a menace to themselves and others.
It is of course possible that Neely’s violent ravings could have resolved peacefully if everyone had sat there, terrified, trying to avoid eye contact until he wandered away. Or maybe not. A just society doesn’t ask law-abiding citizens to bet their lives on that dicey judgment call. And it makes sure that a man like Jordan Neely is in jail or in a facility that deals with his violent and insane behavior humanely.
The country has two choices as this case hits the national headlines. We can barrel ahead into our next “Summer of Jordan,” paint murals of this unfortunate man’s face from coast to coast, and continue to create the atmosphere in which a thousand more Jordan Neelys will threaten a thousand more subway cars full of potential victims and victimizers alike. Or we can reestablish order, enforce the law, keep criminals in jail, and commit the clearly insane.
Sorry for the conservatives and Republicans stuck behind enemy lines, but for the rest they got what they voted for.
No reason to help them. They did this to themselves.
Criminals wouldn’t have been shot if they weren’t trying to rob BG.
Maybe not go around robbing?
Crazy idea there!
Shouldn’t these people be protesting Alvin Braggs? The crazy homeless guy pushed someone off a train platform a few days earlier and was released immediately. He’d be alive if NYC prosecuted him....
It sad that somebody died, but it sounds like he brought his demise on himself.
I have not seen the video and want to learn more about this incident.
Seeing the likes of Ocasio-Cortez weighing in on this, makes it sound like the Liberals are going to milk this incident for all its worth, to push the view that America is racist sexist etc.
Nicely done
We need to reopen mental hospitals nationwide to have people committed. They were closed over the years due to being “cruel and inhumane” and thinking medication will help.
a real shame crazy people are allowed to bother the rest of us.
Have their own subway car.
MEDICATION MAY help-—BUT no one is under enough control to make sure they TAKE their meds.
A Singaporean business colleague phrased would phrase it "he was just helped to get to his destination a little faster."
We were discussing the local policy of exiling drug addicts who failed rehab three times to little islands off the main island.
The attacks on innocents by crazies in blue cities is not new, as per the example below:
In a famous 1984 case that made headlines at the peak of New York’s last crime-ridden era, a jury was asked to consider whether pulling out a firearm and shooting four men in a subway car was a “reasonable” response to being panhandled for five dollars. The context: Was it fair for Bernie Goetz to assume he was about to be violently mugged?
One of the men shot confessed from his hospital bed that his three companions were, in point of fact, planning to rob Goetz, calling him “easy bait.” Two of them were carrying screwdrivers in their pockets. But because the would-be muggers were black, and Goetz was white, the case was painted by media figures and self-described radical lawyers like William Kunstler as the actions of a crazed and racist vigilante. Protestors stood outside the courtroom chanting “Bernhard Goetz, you can’t hide; we charge you with genocide.”
But during a record-breaking crime wave, the average American was sick of being told that his desire to go about his business without constant fear of violence and robbery was somehow illegitimate. A strong majority of Americans polled at the time supported Goetz’s actions, and fully two-thirds agreed he had acted in self-defense. Radio lines were inundated with calls pronouncing him a hero.
Goetz was acquitted of attempted murder by a jury that had been in that same subway car one too many times, a public fed up with having to accept muggings, stabbings, drug dealing, and general danger and disorder as an everyday consequence of living in the city. Six of twelve members of Goetz’s jury had themselves been the victims of street crime.
A city that permits the seriously mentally ill to roam free is begging for tragic outcomes.
https://americanmind.org/salvo/all-tomorrows-riots/
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