Killing of Jordan Neely

Location of the incident at the Broadway–Lafayette Street station
Date	May 1, 2023 (2023-05-01)
Time	c. 2:30 p.m.[1] (EDT)
Location	Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Type	Homicide by chokehold[a][1]
Filmed by	Juan Alberto Vázquez
Deaths	Jordan Neely
Accused	Daniel Penny
Charges	Second-degree manslaughter

On May 1, 2023, around 2:30 p.m., Jordan Neely, a homeless 30-year-old black man, was killed by Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old white man, who placed him in a chokehold while they were riding the F train in Manhattan on the New York City Subway.^[2][3][4] At least two others restrained Neely's limbs. Freelance journalist and witness Juan Alberto Vázquez recorded video of the incident.

According to police, witnesses said Neely was acting in a "hostile and erratic" manner, telling riders that he would hurt anyone on the train. Vázquez said that Neely was shouting that he was hungry and thirsty, that he did not mind "going to jail or getting life in prison", and was "ready to die."^[4][5] Vázquez said that Neely did not physically attack anyone,^[6] but other witnesses reported him throwing trash at passengers.^[7] Penny approached Neely from behind, placing him in a chokehold.^[8] The chokehold lasted for several minutes and at least three minutes were recorded on video.^[9][10] According to Vázquez, the chokehold lasted for 15 minutes.^[11] An onlooker warned about fatal harm being done to Neely, saying, "You're gonna kill him now."^[12] After the chokehold, the onlooker said, "He's all right. He ain’t gonna die."^[2] Vázquez said that Neely was moving and defending himself during the chokehold, and Vázquez did not believe that he would die.^[13] Neely was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital, where he was pronounced dead; according to some sources, he died on the subway car's floor.^[14]

Police questioned Penny after the incident but released him without charges a few hours later.^[15] Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg began an investigation.^[16] On May 3, the medical examiner's office determined the manner of death to be homicide,^[17] stating that Neely died from "compression of neck (chokehold)".^[1] On May 5, it was reported a grand jury would meet to determine if charges should be pressed against Penny.^[18] On May 12, Penny was charged with second-degree manslaughter.^[19] He has not yet entered a plea, as he has yet to be indicted by a grand jury.^[20] If convicted, Penny could face up to 15 years in prison.^[21]

Incident

External video
Video of the last three minutes of the chokehold (03:48) on Facebook – taken by freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vázquez

The incident took place on the New York City Subway in Manhattan.^[22] According to Vázquez, Neely boarded a northbound F train at the Second Avenue station just before the doors closed and started "to make a speech", yelling "I don't have food, I don't have a drink, I'm fed up. I don't mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I'm ready to die."^[4][23][24] He then "took off his jacket, a black jacket that he had, and threw it on the ground."^[25] Witnesses also reported Neely throwing trash at passengers.^[7] After Neely threw his jacket down, Penny walked up to Neely from behind and placed him into a chokehold.^[26][25] Vázquez said that Neely did not interact with Penny prior to the chokehold.^[27]

Vázquez stated that he "heard a thump" and saw the men on the floor.^[2] The train stopped at the Broadway–Lafayette Street station, where it remained while two men grabbed Neely's arms and legs.^[2] Other riders held open the train doors, preventing the train from moving on.^[24] According to Vázquez, Neely was moving throughout the chokehold, stating that he was "defending himself all the time, all the time he moved, he tried to remove his arm" and "when they had it on his side, he kept kicking, so we thought that's him defending himself."^[28] Vázquez said that Penny asked other riders to call the police during the chokehold.^[24] Another rider, Johnny Grima, said that he put water on Neely's forehead, but was told to stop by Penny.^[29] A witness stated that at some point during the chokehold, Penny relaxed his grip on Neely, and Neely coughed up a wad of blood and mucus.^[30] The same witness noted that nobody on the train car was telling Penny to stop his chokehold, and that some passengers expressed hostile statements towards Neely and expressed support for Penny's actions.^[30] At 2:29 p.m., a passerby who entered the train warned the men to check that Neely had not defecated, a sign that he may be dying, saying, "You don't want to catch a murder charge. You got a hell of a chokehold, man."^[2][13] A passenger replied and told him that Penny had stopped squeezing Neely's neck.^[13] After the passerby said that Neely had indeed defecated on himself, one of the men helping to restrain Neely responded by saying that what appeared to be new excrement was in fact old excrement.^[13][31] About 50 seconds after Neely became motionless, Penny and the two other men released their hold on Neely.^[32] Grima can then be seen in the video of Neely's death saying, "Don't put him on his back though, man. He might choke on his own spit."^[33] Penny then placed Neely on his side, into a recovery position.^[13] Other passengers also checked on him and the passerby who warned about defecation said, "He's all right. He ain't gonna die."^[2]

The New York Police Department received a call about a fight on the train at 2:27 p.m., and arrived before 2:30 p.m., administering first aid to an unconscious Neely.^[2][28][34] The New York City Fire Department received its call for help at 2:39 p.m., arriving at 2:46 p.m.. At least five 9-1-1 calls were made, with some initial reports describing a homeless man that some found to be threatening in his mannerisms and volume.^[35]

Neely was pronounced dead after being transported to Lenox Hill Hospital.^[25] According to some sources, when attempts were made to resuscitate him inside the subway car, Neely was already dead.^[36]

People involved

Jordan Neely

Jordan Neely was a 30-year-old black mentally ill man, with criminally violent history, who grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey.^[37] In 2007, when Neely was 14 years old, his mother was murdered by a man with whom she had been in an abusive relationship. Her body was found in a suitcase on the side of the Henry Hudson Parkway. Neely was called to testify at the trial.^[38][39] According to his aunt, he developed depression, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorder after the murder of his mother.^[40] Neely was placed in foster care as a youth.^[37]

In 2009, Neely was a locally known Michael Jackson impersonator, performing in Times Square, on subways, and in subway stations.^[37][40][41] He was reputed to be a talented dancer.^[42] Neely was frequently homeless, and had been a client of the Bowery Residents' Committee, which attempted to find him permanent shelter.^[37][43] At the time of his death, Neely was on the "Top 50 List", a roster maintained by New York City of the homeless individuals most in need of assistance and treatment. Specialized outreach teams had contacted him hundreds of times, and he was treated by one of the city-funded Intensive Mobile Treatment teams.^[44][45] According to outreach workers, "Neely heavily used K2 [aka spice], the powerful, unpredictable synthetic marijuana [..] and threatened to kill [a woman] according to the worker's notes [and the next year in March 2020 was taken to Bellevue Hospital [a safety net hospital] for a week",^[44] a designer drug (illegal in NY, and every state) that can make you paranoid.

According to a police officer, Neely had been arrested 42 times by NYPD; many of the arrests were for minor violations, but three were for unprovoked assaults on women in the NYC subway.^[46][47] In 2015, Neely pled guilty to endangering the welfare of a child after dragging a 7-year-old girl down a street; he was sentenced to four months in jail.^[48][49][50] At the time of his death, he was subject to a 15-month alternative to incarceration program after pleading guilty in February 2023 to felony assault of a 67-year-old woman, whom he punched as she exited a train station in November 2021, breaking her nose and fracturing an orbital bone. Under the terms of the program, Neely was to live in a treatment facility in the Bronx. He had a warrant issued for his arrest after he missed a court date to update a judge on his progress and abandoned the treatment facility 13 days after he started the program.^[51][52][44]

In March 2023, Neely was spotted and taken to a homeless shelter by an outreach worker, who described him as calm and subdued. His last interaction with law enforcement was on April 9, 2023; outreach workers called police after witnessing Neely urinating inside a subway car, and he was ejected from the train.^[44] Five days later, an outreach worker spotted Neely in Coney Island, and noted him as aggressive and incoherent, writing that "He could be a harm to others or himself if left untreated."^[44]

Neely has spent over a year in jail for aggression.^[44] He was also kept for a week at Bellevue Hospital.^[44]

Daniel Penny

Daniel Penny is a 24-year-old white former Marine sergeant from Long Island, New York, who choked Neely. Penny hired Thomas Kenniff, a former Republican candidate for district attorney, to represent him.^[53]

On May 5, 2023, Penny's attorneys released a statement offering Penny's condolences to Neely's family, stating that Penny "never intended to harm Mr. Neely" and that "[w]hen Mr. Neely began aggressively threatening Daniel Penny and the other passengers, Daniel, with the help of others, acted to protect themselves, until help arrived."^[54][55]

On May 11, 2023, it was announced that Penny would be charged with second-degree manslaughter.^[56] If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.^[21]

On May 12, Penny was released on bail of $100,000 and required to surrender his passport and not leave New York without approval.^[57]

Reactions and protests

Public officials and community

New York City Mayor Eric Adams called Neely's death "tragic" and said "there's a lot we don't know about what happened here", and that Neely's mental health issues played a role in the killing.^[9] When asked about the issue of vigilantism in a May 4 interview with Abby Phillip, he replied that "we cannot blanketly tell passengers what they should or should not do."^[58] Adams later held a press conference calling for passage of the proposed Supportive Interventions Act, a bill that would lower the legal threshold at which a person can be involuntarily committed in New York.^[59]

City Council member Tiffany Cabán said the killing was "the inevitable outcome of the dangerous rhetoric of stigmatizing mental health issues, stigmatizing poverty and the continued bloated investment in the carceral system at the expense of funding access to housing, food and health."^[60]

Metropolitan Transportation Authority chair Janno Lieber called the death "really troubling and upsetting." He urges riders to “find a way to deescalate” if “challenges” emerge on the subways.^[61]

New York state Senator Julia Salazar wrote, "A man named Jordan Neely was choked to death in public on the subway this week while people watched and even cheered. This is horrific. The constant demonization of poor people and people in mental health crisis in our city allows for this barbarism. It is making our city sick."^[62] She further labeled the killing as a "lynching".^[63] Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote, "Jordan Neely was murdered. But bc Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected w/ passive headlines + no charges. It's disgusting."^[64] Gov. Kathy Hochul stated Neely's death was "deeply disturbing."^[65] New York City Comptroller Brad Lander stated that "We must not become a city where a mentally ill human being can be choked to death by a vigilante without consequence."^[66] Adams rebutted statements from Lander and Cortez as not being "very responsible at the time where we're still investigating the situation" and called for officials to wait on investigations from Bragg and law enforcement officials.^[9][67][68]

Other officials expressed frustration that DA Bragg's office had not already criminally charged Penny, claiming that if the assailant had been black, the situation would have unfolded differently. New York City Council speaker Adrienne Adams stated, "The initial response by our legal system to this killing is disturbing and puts on display for the world the double standards that black people and other people of color continue to face."^[69]

New York City media reported that residents were divided over the case, with some supporting Penny's actions, and others not.^[70][71]

More than 45,000 online donations have been made to Penny's legal defense fund, totaling around $2 million,^[72][73] with some conservatives — including Republican politicians Ron DeSantis and Matt Gaetz — labeling Penny a hero and celebrating his actions.^[74][75][76]

Protests

Two days after Neely's killing, a vigil-turned-protest was held inside the Broadway–Lafayette Street station, in which the arrest and charge of the then unnamed man who choked Neely was demanded.^[77] A protest in front of the Manhattan district attorney's office was set for May 4,^[78] and another protest was held in Brooklyn on the same day;^[79] later in the night, a group of demonstrators marched from Brooklyn to Manhattan across the Manhattan Bridge, where they spray-painted slogans related to Neely's death.^[80] Several organizations, including Black Lives Matter, NAACP and Amnesty International USA, have called for accountability in Neely's killing.^[81][82] On May 5, 2023, protests took place across the city, including locations such as the Broadway-Lafayette Street station, Washington Square Park, and outside the Manhattan district attorney's office, calling for criminal charges to be brought.^[83] Protests were again held on May 6, 2023, at various locations in Manhattan, including the Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station, where several protesters were arrested.^[84][85] On May 8, 2023, there were clashes between demonstrators and police during the protests, and various arrests were made that night.^[86]

Family

Neely's father Andre Zachery spoke with the New York Daily News on May 5, 2023, stating, "Obviously he was calling for help ... He wasn't out to hurt nobody. He was a good kid and a good man too. Something has to be done. That man, he's still walking around right now. My son didn't deserve to die because he needed help."^[87] On May 8, 2023, attorneys representing Neely's family released a statement noting, "Daniel Penny's press release is not an apology nor an expression of regret. It is a character assassination and a clear example of why he believed he was entitled to take Jordan's life ... He never attempted to help him at all. In short, his actions on the train, and now his words, show why he needs to be in prison."^[88] The family asked Al Sharpton to deliver the eulogy at Neely's funeral.^[89]

See also

• 1984 New York City Subway shooting

Notes

References