As New York City authorities continue to investigate the killing of an unhoused Black man who was put into a chokehold by a white transit passenger, anger and frustration mounted over the lack of an arrest in the case, reinforcing longstanding racial disparities over who gets charged for crimes in the city and nationally.
“His killing is a reflection of deep racial bias in our society,” Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told the Guardian on Friday. “And the way he was treated after death is a reflection of other biases with regard to people who suffer mental illness.
“This is about the devastating intersection of bias and failed policy. This is not just about New York City. New York City shapes society or reflects it.”
On 1 May, Jordan Neely, 30, reportedly yelled at passengers on a F train heading into Manhattan, pleading that he was hungry, homeless and thirsty when, in an apparent escalation, subway riders restrained him. Video footage showed a 24-year-old white former marine, identified as Daniel Penny, of Long Island, holding Neely in a chokehold for several minutes while another rider held the supine man’s arms.
Friends and family have described Neely as a sweet, loving and talented Michael Jackson impersonator who dealt with mental health challenges following his mother’s murder when he was a teenager.
Advocates argued that the circumstances surrounding Neely’s life and death, which the city’s medical examiner’s office ruled a homicide, reflected longstanding failures to provide social services to impoverished New Yorkers.
Criminal justice experts also told the Guardian that the lack of an arrest in this case also illuminated broader disparities embedded in the US criminal justice system’s treatment of certain people, whether Black, impoverished or struggling with a disability.
“It also reflects the profound failed policies our city has pursued for decades,” Lieberman said. “Instead of providing mental health care, instead of providing housing, we provide police sweeping the streets.”
Activists also decried that Neely’s killer had not been immediately charged. Johnny Grima, 38, an activist with Tompkins Mutual Aid, said that Neely’s life was unvalued by law enforcement because he was an unhoused Black man with mental health issues.
“Jordan Neely to them is a piece of garbage. And it’s fucking sad ’cause he isn’t a piece of garbage,” said Grima, adding that police were also hesitant to charge Penny because he was a white marine.
“Had it been a white woman that was choked for 15 minutes, [the assailant] probably would’ve been arrested on sight,” Grima added.
Black Americans are disproportionately arrested, convicted and detained pre-trial compared with white Americans. A United Nations report on US criminal justice system disparities showed that Black Americans are also unevenly denied bail and then detained when they are unable to afford it. In this case, no charges had been filed as of late Friday, days after police questioned the white rider.
Lieberman argued that Neely’s killing “would almost certainly have never happened if he were not Black”, adding that she had “little doubt” police would have charged Penny if he were Black.
She and her colleague, Beth Haroules, a staff attorney at NYCLU and director of disability justice litigation, condemned the public release of Neely’s criminal record, which included dozens of charges ranging from alleged assault to lower-level offenses such as jumping subway turnstiles and carrying an open alcohol container.
Haroules called the dissemination of Neely’s record before the filing of charges against the white rider or any others involved in Neely’s death a “perversion of the investigative process”, adding that it “polluted” the ongoing investigation before it has concluded and would make it more difficult for jurors.
“The release of all the touches Neely has had with the criminal justice system is so stark and damning,” Haroules said. “No alternatives were made available to him or supported housing assistance with his mental health situation.”
When she heard about the case, she found it “shocking” that the rider took matters into his own hands. But she also found it “not surprising” given the heightened rhetoric from the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, and others around increasing police presence in subway stations to curtail crime as well as endorsing involuntarily hospitalizing people experiencing homelessness with mental illness, even as the city cuts services for those facing such challenges.
The white rider’s act of putting Neely in a chokehold, at a time when the New York police force is banned from using chokeholds, spoke to an environment in which “people felt empowered to take the law into their own hands” even as Neely did not appear to “create a risk of danger that was violent”, Haroules said.
She added: “It is very dangerous for our elected officials to continuously drill into people’s heads that men of color, unhoused, mentally ill on the subway are there and if you don’t get them down first, they will take you out.” New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, called the attack “deeply disturbing”, telling Spectrum News NY1 that there are “consequences for behavior”.
Citing a source, ABC7 reported that a grand jury could convene next week to determine whether charges are appropriate.
Neely reportedly struggled after his mother’s death: When Neely was a teenager, his mother, Cynthia, was choked to death by an abusive boyfriend. He suffered a similar fate on Monday.
Haroules said that Neely’s death should be a “wake-up moment” for the city to decide how both officials and police want to treat unhoused people and those suffering from mental illness. She noted that she saw the “same playbook” arising as when police “engage in unlawful use of force” against a person, particularly those having a mental health crisis.
“We see it all the time,” she said. “The outcome is that the person in mental health crisis is killed or suffers pretty grievous harm.”
She added: “I don’t know what kind of justice can be had for Neely and his family.”
