The Jordan Neely case continues. The accused ex-marine who faces charges of second degree manslaughter offered neither an apology or regrets, even claiming if such a scenario surfaced again he would still intervene.
After 11 days of the killing of homeless person Jordan Neely in a Manhattan subway car on May 1st, in New York City, the legal authorities charged 24 year old Daniel Penny with second degree manslaughter. Much later, he was released on June 28th with 100,000 dollar bail fee.
The case has stunned a lot of Americans and people all over the world. The shock arose not only due to the senseless killing but about the cruel and callous reaction of so many who actually condoned—and still condone—this killing.
For anyone unfamiliar with the case on May 1st, a homeless man who was a Michael Jackson impersonator, Jordan Neely , was killed by a 24 year old ex marine Daniel Penny. Jordan Neely, who was in a Manhattan subway train car started to loudly complain that he was suffering from hunger, thirst, plus lack of a place to stay. He felt he had no future. He stated he wanted to serve a life sentence in jail. It was a cry of utter despair. It looked like he was suffering a complete nervous breakdown.
Most of the passengers simply distanced themselves from Neely in the car. According to the statements of witnesses, Neely did not threaten or attack anyone. He did not pose any imminent threat. Despite this, an ex-marine approached Neely, threw him down, and choked him to death. The appeal of one passenger to stop choking Neely was ignored.
The fact that the ex-marine was allowed to walk away from the incident freely stirred up a lot of anger and outrage among the public. Why did it take so long for the authorities to charge such a person who simply almost casually approached and choked to death a vulnerable person with mental health problems?
A lawyer representing Neely claimed there was no danger or threat present in the car. He stated, "Bottom line: at some point Mr Penny should have let go before Jordan died. There is no excuse for choking anyone for that long if it will kill them." Other protesters have stated, "Daniel Penny did not have the right to be the judge, jury and executioner."
Wading through all the reports and arguments one wonders who is actually on trial—Jordan Neely or Daniel Penny?
Social media sites have practically waged a vicious character assassination of the victim where they cite his criminal record of fare-dodging and 3 unprovoked assaults on women. In contrast, Daniel Penny is being hailed as some kind of hero and even 'a good Samaritan'. As much as 3 million dollars have been raised to support Penny's case. Now Neely appears to be the villain and Penny and the other passengers the victims. They argue Penny was just defending passengers from what they perceived as an 'imminent attack.' But does complaining hysterically mean physical attack?
I have seen such cases in the Moscow Metro where such passengers act and other passengers either ignore them and remain calm. And no violence occurs! In my experience people do not hysterically overreact by going up to such passengers and casually choking them to death. {I have been using the Moscow Metro for almost 30 years.} More often they tend to feel sorry for such a passenger. They try to keep calm so that the situation does not get worse.
My experience in the Moscow Metro suggests that there were many other options open to how to react to such an event.
His aunt and a friend revealed a very tragic side to Neely's life which puts Neely's cry for help in perspective…
Neely was deeply traumatized by the murder of his mother when he was 14. His mother was murdered by her partner and her body put into a suitcase. He did not expect such a callous crime could be committed. I think the impact of such a crime could unhinge anyone!
What we have in America is something like a moral panic against the threat of crime which is leading people to overreact. An attorney called Mill stated, "We have people being killed for ringing the wrong doorbell, pulling in the wrong driveway and screaming out in desperation on the subway."
In another absurd incident, a jogger, 68 year old Craig Sumner Elliot, shot dead a homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk, four times with a pistol. Elliot woke Antonia Garcia Avalos up. Avalos threw a shoe at Elliot. Avalos responded by shooting the homeless person to death! Elliot was arrested on the 17th November.
There is no doubt that support for vigilantes where people take the law into their own hands has substantial support in America. You have a whole film culture which popularizes lone vigilantes through the films of the late Charles Bronson as well as the Clint Eastwood films. But to be fair , Dirty Harry does draw a line and refuse to become a vigilante because he says very clearly, "Are you going to kill someone for jay walking ?"
It is unfortunate that so many people in both Russia and America view the homeless as either dangerous criminals or a threat to safety. But we hear less about how the homeless are more likely to be the victims of crimes rather than the perpetrators.
As a volunteer who was working for a charity who aided the homeless in the 1990's and into the 21st century, I was never physically assaulted by the homeless in Moscow. But I witnessed too many ugly incidents of homeless people receiving physical blows not to mention facing a tirade of mockery and abuse. I found a lot of people seemed more amused by the plight of the homeless than expressing any compassion.
I recall seeing a militia man coming up to a homeless person sleeping in a metro carriage savagely beating him with his baton. The militia man beat him in a berserk way. I don't know if the homeless person survived this! I did not just see such incidents once.
It was unpleasant having to listen to a homeless man telling us how his 42-year-old wife was beaten to death in front of him and his children. He told me how he attempted to save her by giving her a massage and aid but it was all in vain. He wept. But instead of getting sympathy the militia insulted him and a Russian woman chided him by saying, "Men should not cry." Yankely's wife Raisa Ivanova, 42, died. Nobody has been charged or prosecuted for her murder. Yankely told us "I am afraid to lose someone else." I recall how a 34-year-old homeless ex-radio journalist was pushed to the ground by a militia man. She fell to the ground and badly injured her head. She died from the blow. Again nobody was charged with her killing!
Then a homeless person we befriended called Stati Kim, a Korean translator who was homeless in Moscow and spoke Russian, Korean, and Japanese, was beaten to death while sleeping on a roof by an elite police squad the OMAN. He was looking for his brother whom he had lost contact with. When a Swedish volunteer Christine Sand learnt about this she was very upset and in tears. A companion who just managed to escape from the attack informed us about the incident and how his body remained unclaimed in some unknown morgue.
There exist some people who will actually condone such killings. They tend to dehumanize the victims claiming they are not real people but vermin, pests or just 'wasters.' But there can be no excuses for such monstrous crimes. You can't defend the indefensible.
If you read Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' {1866} you'll read how at one point Raskolnikov attempts to justify the murder of a pawnbroker by claiming she was no human being but just a cockroach… {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment}.
He said she was evil. His girlfriend Sonya rightly scolds him saying, "How can anyone justify the murder of a real human being?" Sonya had sense!
Some people forget that Jordan Neely was a special human being. As his aunt put it aptly and poetically "He was a diamond in the ground."
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Author’s note: I acknowledge some of the report comes from information found in Brian Wllliamson's article dated January 1998 in the Bezdna newspaper, as well as subsequent reports sent to me by Thomas Hansen and the reports of the newspaper the ‘British Guardian’ of May and June 2023.