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.
He threatened mass violence and was taken down. There was a clear and immediate threat. No one is obligated to wait for him to start attacking. He was clearly insane, the criminally insane must be neutralized quickly and efficiently. Have you seen his rap sheet? His existence was a curse upon the earth. This shouldn’t even be a news story, it should be common sense for violent lunatics to be taken out.
The reason no one knows who Eli Dicken is is that the mass shooter he shot and stopped was white. If the goblin had been black, the perpetual race grievance industry would be calling for his head like they are with Daniel Penny.
As far as they are concerned, all black people must be allowed to do whatever they want to do, and no white person must interfere, under any circumstances. That is their vision of our national future.
See, you have to wait until you are bludgeoned stabbed or shot and even them you are expected to take it. Government sanctioned attack on its citizens
Before anyone condemns Mr. Penny, they need to watch a 1967 movie “The Incident.”
“..How Black Americans are treated as threats.”
Only the ones who ACT threatening; not the black-skinned whiteys do-gooders as portrayed on tv and in the movies..(who are ALWAYS the victims of evil, racist white people just because..)
Yes, you are exactly right - this is about black people who subscribe to the ghetto ‘culture’ being able to do whatever and get whatever they want, by any means, without opposition or consequences. - THAT is “justice”(?) to them…
It’s all a heart problem; if you’re a human being, regardless if you’re a multi-millionaire or in the gutter with nothing, there IS still right and wrong. Society shouldn’t have to alter because YOU want to choose ‘wrong’.
There’s a large disconnect between what you think the law should be and what NY law allows a person to do in self-defense of himself or others. Under NY law: “a person may use physical force upon another individual when, and to the extent that, he/she reasonably believes it to be necessary to defend himself/herself [or someone else] from what he/she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of [unlawful] physical force by such individual.”
As applied to the case at issue, Penny must have first had a reasonable belief that Neely’s use of unlawful physical force was imminent; and second, Penny’s response must have been reasonably proportionate to the threat. What is “reasonable” in perceiving the threat and the response to the perceived threat are generally questions of fact for the grand jury and if the grand jury indicts, the trial jury.
Under NY law, verbal threats do not justify the use of physical force let alone deadly physical force. Like it or not, that’s the law. If Neely was throwing punches or kicks (regardless of whether he actually struck someone) or even stepped toward someone with a clenched fist, then Penny would have been justified in using non-deadly force to stop the threat. If Neely displayed a weapon while making verbal threats, the Penny would have justified in using non-deadly force and perhaps even deadly force to stop the threat. From everything that I have read, however, Neely’s threats were verbal only and he did not display a weapon, and there lies the problem.
Thanks for your explanation...It is useful...
I feel bad for Mr. Neely...I am sure that he had good intentions...But...He might get convicted in this case...
Just Stay Seated and Do Nothing?
That’s why the find bodies in the subway
Jordan Neely stupidity cost him he was a heavy K2 user citizens have every right to protest them self and others.
The Marine acted wisely as the the black man helping him.
Resist, defy and struggle against any such laws. Smash the state. Especially NY state! And certainly, smash street criminals. The only mistake here was getting caught on the wrong side of some arbitrary rule called a “law.” Sure maybe next time wait for the next Neely to attack someone. And THEN put him in a chokehold. The time for passive cooperation is long, long gone.
So, you have to give the criminal the first shot before you protect yourself or others? No response to verbal threats accompanied by insane behavior?
We have been advised on this- “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” — Maya Angelou
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