Posted on 05/13/2023 5:25:22 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Imagine, for a moment, a different scenario in the Jordan Neely case.
Let’s say that Neely, a homeless individual and part-time Michael Jackson impersonator with a record of 40-plus arrests, had not been apprehended and put into a choke-hold by 24-year-old Marine vet Daniel Penny on the Manhattan-bound F-train on May 1, 2023.
Let’s also imagine that Neely’s mental breakdown rant on that same subway train went from threatening violence – “I’ll hurt anyone on this train” – to actual violence in which he attacked several passengers.
Imagine Neely turning on passengers by pushing, shoving, punching and kicking – as Daniel Penny observed the mayhem from the sidelines.
Imagine the press coverage after this fact.
“Passengers watch as homeless man terrorizes train and injures many. Who was there to defend the 80-year-old woman who died of a heart attack as Neely threw kicks and punches?”
The article would give an overview of the able-bodied passengers on the train who could have done something but didn’t.
“On board was a 24-year-old Marine vet who sat and observed as 80-year-old Mrs. O’Rielly fell to the floor and died” – one can envision news stations proclaiming.
The Jordan Neely incident could have easily gone this way.
Any city resident will tell you that riding the subway on a regular basis is a good education when it comes to gauging the danger level of crazy people acting out in public.
Most of the crazies I’ve encountered on Philadelphia’s Market Street El have been of the ‘theatrical’ variety (all bark and no bite) who, though seriously mentally ill, are rarely harmful to other people and not dangerous with a capital ‘D’ at all. To the occasional suburbanite who rarely visits the city, however, these same people might appear to be extremely dangerous.
In other words, when one is thoroughly urbanized, these things are put into perspective.
At the same time it is very nearly impossible to know when a severely mentally ill individual like Neely will snap and go from ‘all bark and no bite’ to actual violence.
When one enters a train as Neely did and screams that he is ready to die, and that he doesn’t care if he gets the death penalty, this is tantamount to an Islamist terrorist screaming from his airplane seat that he is ready to die for Allah.
Behavior like this puts everyone on notice that they should also be ready to die. After all, if the deranged person doesn’t care about his life, he’s not going to care about yours.
And yet – would you believe – an army of woke leftist race card baiters would have you believe otherwise.
Vox, the lefist online publication, ran the following headline after Neely’s death: ‘How Black Americans are treated as threats.”
What does a headline like this mean? Neely was a threat because of his actions, not because of his race. Had a deranged white man shouted similar things Penny would almost certainly have reacted in a similar way.
It’s also possible that Penny hesitated before subduing Neely because he was black and the ‘race card’ threatened to discolor anything he might do.
CNN’s headline took the sympathetic/Hallmark card approach: ‘Jordan Neely, the man killed in chokehold on NYC Subway, is remembered as an entertainer shattered by his mother’s death.’
Embedded in the headline one can hear a chorus of violins that seems to raise questions about Penny’s motivations when he unintentionally ended the life of a homeless man whose life had already been shattered.
Mayor Eric Adams, wisely circumspect, did not jump to Al Sharpton conclusions when he cautioned New Yorkers to withhold judgment about the case until all the facts are in.
As for Sharpton, Newsweek quoted him as saying that he wants Neely’s death investigated “as a potential case of manslaughter if not murder.” What else would you expect Al Sharpton to say? Sharpton compared the case to the Bernhard Goetz case in 1984, when Goetz, a white man, was convicted of a weapons offense after shooting four black men on a NYC subway train.
“We cannot end up back to a place where vigilantism is tolerable,” Sharpton said. “It wasn’t acceptable then and it cannot be acceptable now.”
Sharpton and his cohorts have now branded Penny a vigilante.
This convenient stick-on label got New York’s governor to say that “Neely’s family deserves justice,” an ambiguous phrase loaded with BLM imagery – “No Justice, No Peace” – with the additional overlay of American cities burning in 2020.
Wonderful, governor!
That call has been taken up by veteran 2020 rioters, who have been in a dormant state since George Floyd was a household name. Now that the race card buzzer has gone off, one can see them springing into action: See them jump onto the tracks and blocking subway trains at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
See them with megaphones and protest signs:
“Jordan Neely’s death was a lynching!”
“Justice 4 Jordan Neely—Murdered!”
The Left desperately wants a new George Floyd, a new race divider martyr/hero to keep the race war going.
The Neely incident caused Candace Owens to remark that the nation needs to bring back insane asylums. “Mentally well people are now being told to yield to mentally ill people,” she said in a YouTube podcast that was packed with triple viewing warnings from leftist YouTube brass.
Owens stated that the Left wants us to believe that “Homeless people are all suffering and all they want is food,” when the reality is quite the opposite. Nearly 100% of the homeless in big cities, especially New York, are drug-addled individuals who were not made homeless because they couldn’t pay their mortgage or rent.
While drug addiction is no excuse to mistreat the homeless, they should not be “romanticized” either.
But this is what Sara Newman, director of organizing at the New York’s Open Hearts Initiative, an advocacy group for homeless shelter residents, seems to be suggesting when she said, “Jordan Neely’s murder is the direct result of efforts to dehumanize and demonize New Yorkers who are experiencing homelessness, living with mental illness or just existing in the world as Black and poor.”
In my Philadelphia neighborhood, the vast majority of the drug-addicted homeless are poor and white.
In the coming weeks, we are likely to see Daniel Penny turned into a villain by mainstream media outlets, especially as leftists pump fuel into their demands that he be punished as a lesson and warning to other wannabe “vigilantes” who might jump into action the way Penny did on May 1.
That message will be simple: If the perceived trouble-maker is black and you are white, the best option is to stay seated and do nothing.
ping
NYC used to see the Kitty Genovese case as an object lesson for why bystanders had an obligation to get involved. Now the government of NY is teaching the lesson: Stay in your seat, and wait for your beatdown.
That’s why no one knows who Eli Dicken is. He didn’t want to become public enemy number one like Kyle Rittenhaus. Heroic behavior is a bane in this sick culture.
RE: That’s why no one knows who Eli Dicken is.
You got me there. I don’t know who he is or what heroic thing he did. Care to share a link on him?
Yes, that’s exactly what they want you to do. You have a much better chance of getting killed that way.
I take what people say seriouly, especially when its about violence.
Maybe they should write an article to people not to threaten violence to others, lest the people decide to neutralize the threatener first.
Maybe write an article about the Golden Rule.
Maybe write an article that if you appear to think you assaulting others is acceptable, that means others are free to do the same back to you, and you have absolutely no grounds to complain when they do.
He stopped a mass shooting in Indiana by shooting a psycho. He then wisely shunned the press and publicity.
If this incident had happened aboard an airliner in mid-flight, and Neely had threatened other passengers, then Penny did the right thing - to the relief of the flight crew and most of the passengers.
In that senario, if Penny were a police officer, air marshal, some kind of federal law enforcement agent, then Penny would not be subjected to arrest.
There is no justice in arresting Penny, the citizen, but not arresting Penny the law enforcement agent.
IMHO
Dispatch the crazy, threatening black man and never surrender to the police. The law is only there to appease the mob, not find justice.
If they cared about the homeless they wouldn’t support or be silent about homeless people sleeping on the street while state and federal government pays for migrants to sleep in hotel rooms.
The issue is never the issue with the left.
If citizens were armed crazies would think twice about assaulting them.
“Stay in your seat, and wait for your beatdown.”
And if you don’t like that, ask yourself why you are in a blue city in a blue state? Learn to love being submissive to the state and their violent minions or move.
Yes, realize that in today's world, blacks are precious, superior, and above the law. The trouble-maker can literally do whatever he wants. But you, whitey, better watch yourself. Don't do anything to him, not even a dirty look. You entire life could be ruined. If the trouble-maker is beating up on some elderly person, do nothing. Just sit there and hope you're not next. Remember, you're nothing but a white. You have no rights.
Let’s cut the crap. Blame the city for not providing the help he needed. Bottom line Jordan Neely was a waste of human skin, just like George Floyd. Donald Trump wants these people on the outskirts of town. Call him a racist but don’t praise him for dealing with the issue? At least the regular people can get on with their lives. The leftists don’t want that. Their problems are more important.
Suicide should be a right.
As one astute person in my professional circles pointed out: "We should stop thinking of the New York City subway as a mass transit system, and start seeing it for what it is: a mobile insane asylum."
“Imagine Neely turning on passengers by pushing, shoving, punching and kicking – as Daniel Penny observed the mayhem from the sidelines.”
Except I have yet to see a single report or video where Neely made physical contact with anyone.
“Getting the help he needed” buys into the modern fantasy that psychiatrists can treat and cure or control mental illness. The “Bedlam” hospital in England did more to protect the mentally ill patient and society than psychiatrists do today.
How did they do it? The criminally insane were chained to a brick or stone wall, but with a chain too short to strangle themselves. Neely’s victims would have been better off with him chained to a wall. Neely would be better off, not to mention still alive, had he been chained to a wall. Is the contrary even arguable?
Yes, that can be improved on today. But not by allowing the criminally insane to roam free. It doesn’t help the insane person and it’s a menace to society.
OTOH, this could be a turning point!
By that I mean crazy people with multiple arrest records and outstanding felony warrants could be institutionalized.
What we have here is a perfect example of Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders “Normal vs crazy.”
A “normal” takes down a “crazy,” and is arrested.
Do we see the light, yet?
The “optics” of this DEMOCRAT MADE homeless crisis are not good for the Democrats!
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