The Heart of the Debate Over Jordan Neely’s Death

The Atlantic

The Heart of the Debate Over Jordan Neely’s Death

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Readers share their views on the tragedyand on individuals responsibility to one another. Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here. Last week, I asked about the killing of Jordan Neely in the New York City subway and associated debates. Reading diverse opinions can be useful for trying to figure out where justice lies. A trial will best serve that end in this case, but additionally, I believe that its important for Americans to better understand one anothers thinking, and I hope this roundup helps on this matter. Rob focused on the deceased: Neelys death alone disturbs me more than anything else. While I feel righteous anger and could easily rail against a host of contributors to this outcome, my sadness is deeper than any other reaction. Neely is a person with a tragic past who ended up being too crazy to take care of himself or make use of the help he was offered. He could be scary, threatening, and, at times, violent. Its possible that his whole life was an exercise in running away from the death of his mother. Trouble is, he got lost. I dont wish to romanticize him, but to pay respects to his life, an easily forgotten cipher in the big city. However much he became troublesome to others, he did not deserve the death that found him in that subway car. My purpose here is to push all polemical chatter aside and simply say a prayer for him and ask for a moment of silence. His life stirs my sense of humanity and reminds me that there are too many people navigating this world with a broken compass, navigating their way around great sorrow, loss, and the riddle we are all faced with: the purpose, meaning, and value of our lives. Helen explains why her sympathy for Neely coexists with a belief that fearing him was reasonable: Yes, there has to be a better and more ethical way to manage this all-too-common situation. But in the moment, it must be faced that Neely did present a threat. In 2021, he punched a 67-year-old woman in the street, breaking her nose and causing severe facial injuries. He could have killed her as easily as he was killed . Im a vigorous woman, but head trauma at my age could take away my life. Honest discussion is not possible if people say he posed no threat. Nathanael believes that a huge amount rests on the details of whether Jordan Neely did anything to physically threaten anyone, and describes his own experience with subway violence: I rode the Washington, D.C., Metro for years, and I vividly remember the brutal knife murder of a 24-year-old man in 2015. Fellow passengers watched in terror as his murderer stabbed or cut him 30 to 40 times, then robbed several of them before getting off the train. Ive had that story in my head every time I ride the Metro. I am determined that I will put myself in harms way rather than letting something like that happen in front of me. A few years later, I was seated near a door when I heard a man start raising his voice. He appeared to be homeless and was vocally antagonizing people. I didnt think too much of it until I heard someone else raising his voice in response. I looked up and saw another man responding angrily and in a physically threatening way. It looked like a fight was about to start, so I yelled something like, Hey! and got up and stood between them, spreading my arms and holding on to handrails on either side. I faced the first man, but I was worried about getting clocked by the second man to whom I had turned my back. The first man kept yelling, and I just started repeating, Lets just get to the next stop. When we finally got there, I followed the first man off the train and watched as he headed in the other direction. I remember being scared and thinking frantically about what to do the whole time, but also feeling adrenaline and being grateful that when the time had come I actually had done something, as Id always been determined to do in my mind. I got lucky that day: Nobody got hurt. Not me, not either of the men. But I was determined to try to put my body in the way of something that couldve turned out worse. Do I know that Daniel Penny did the right thing or that hes a hero? Absolutely not. If he went too far in responding to purely verbal threats and took Jordan Neelys life because of a too-great willingness to become a vigilante, the law should deal with him accordingly. But I sympathize with the instinct to be vigilant against the threat of public violence, and to be determined not to become a bystander while someone else is assaulted or killed. Matt is a native New Yorker who has trained in Brazilian jiujitsu for 22 years. He writes: I have choked and been choked in training countless times. Contrary to what is implied by TV and movies, it is difficult to kill someone with a chokehold. It may take only 10 to 20 seconds to produce unconsciousness, but a person must be choked for an even longer period to start causing brain damage and ultimately death. Penny probably genuinely believed he was acting in self-defense or in the defense of others. But that didnt give him the right to end Jordan Neelys life. There can be no self-defense against a limp, unconscious body. Jaleelah reflects on self-defense classes and vigilantism: I took several self-defense classes in middle school and high school. Instructors differed slightly. But they all had one thing in common: They instructed their students to try escaping or de-escalating the situation before resorting to physical attacks. Personally, more frequent subway service would be the easiest way to make me feel safer. I would like to be able to exit a train containing an angry incel (real event!) without worrying that I will compromise my job or my education by arriving late at my destination. I am quite heavily on the side of reallocating some amount of police funding and responsibility toward trained mental-health professionals and mediators. I also think the police should screen prospective hires (not just for crime and drug use, but for temperament, empathy, and humility) more carefully, and that they should carry fewer lethal weapons. But I also believe that the prospect of vigilantismwhether committed by shady private security forces or zealous civiliansis the strongest argument against removing police officers from all public spaces. When Gordon watched video of the incident, he identified with the passengers who pitched in to help Daniel Penny. He explains: I lived in New York from 2000 to 2005, took the subway almost every day (often multiple times a day), and was immensely grateful for the freedom that the subway provided. Having said that, there were at least four or five instances during those five years where someone was acting dangerously erratically or simply intentionally intimidating other people. And although I was never particularly worried for myself, I can absolutely remember being terrified as I thought about what I was going to do if the situation became truly violent and the person began to physically attack another rider, particularly a woman. I remember thinking how I would have to do something (the Kitty Genovese story made a huge impression on me as a teenager, and I vowed never to sit back and do nothing while someone was attacked like that), but also how awful it would be to die or be seriously injured because I happened to be on the train with the wrong person and got knifed or shot trying to help. I remember desperately looking around the train trying to figure out who, if anyone, would come to my aid if I intervened and how we could coordinate action. In those moments, I wished there was someone like Daniel Penny on the train with me, especially someone who was willing to take that firstand by far the hardeststep forward to intervene. I feel badly for Jordan Neely, who obviously was the victim of tremendous misfortune. I wish that his mom had never been killed, and that our society had better systems and programs for dealing with the mentally ill. I strongly support higher taxes to make such programs possible. But I draw the line at tolerance of the potential threat of physical violence toward others, particularly in spaces like the subway. And so Im grateful that Daniel Penny was willing to step forward in that moment, especially since I would not have the physical courage to take that first step. Im also sure I would have been one of the people to step forward to assist Penny as he tried to keep Neely subdued by holding Neelys arms. And while I absolutely wish Neely had not died, if Im being honest, I would not have wanted Penny to release him before we were all certain that Neely no longer seemed like a potential threat, even if it risked serious injury to Neely. Chadd believes that the issues of homelessness, mental illness, addiction, and everything to do with extreme poverty require an amount of compassion and understanding that is fundamentally counter to what most Americans believe should be available to random strangers. He writes: I say all this stuff as a former hard-drug user and a person who experienced homelessness and multiple psychotic episodes. Crystal meth, crack cocaine, and other drugs, combined with the constant fear and dread of being homeless, will do that to a person. I dont believe regular Americans have the capacity to understand what its really like to be homeless in America because people (1) dont want to know what its like to be homeless and (2) literally cant understand what its like without experiencing it. Being homeless is not an experience Id wish on my worst enemy. But a part of me wishes that every person could somehow see themselves as Jordan Neely. Im oddly grateful for my awful experience because it created a sense of humility, kindness, and compassion for people less fortunate that I couldnt have otherwise. I cant give that experience away. I kinda wish I could! Maybe people might start to understand that these people, without homes, are still just that: people. Some homeless people have families and friends who love and care about them. Some have literally no one. I cant even imagine what that must be like, to have no one to call. No one to cry to, to reach out to, all while sleeping outside and not knowing where youll find your next meal or fix or whatever you have to do to make it through the day without walking in front of a bus. I can imagine being homeless because I was, but I cant imagine having no one. Fear is one of the things I remember most about the street. And the fear that poor man was forced to experience during the final moments in his life is disgusting. Im grateful that during my worst psychotic episodes I wasnt around people who freaked out and choked me to death. Max warns against making too much of this case: More than 8 million people live in New York City, and many of them will regularly have close encounters with strangers. Some of those encounters will go seriously wrong. Theres nothing new in this, and nothing uniqueto these times, to NYC, to America, to Black people, to white peopleabout the fact that someone died in an unpleasant way we all wish hadnt happened. Among the millions of people who mingle in New York, some will be bad, some will be mad, some will overreact, and some will avoid doing anything. That is just how life is, everywhere and at all times. There may be lessons we need to learn from what happened, but perhaps there arent. Perhaps all we need to do is make sure the authorities punish anyone who broke the law, and to tell all those who want to turn this sad occurrence into a parable of our times and a symptom of burgeoning social chaos to pipe down. Susan wonders if there isnt something we could all do to make cases like this less likely: Im not a New Yorker, and Ive only been on the subway a handful of times. My question is, did anyone offer him any food or drink? Would an act of kindness have had any potential impact? Is there a way to offer kindness without being seen as weak and a mark? It is scary, even to me out here in the safe suburbs, to be reading about people shooting other people for almost no reason whatsoever. I get why people dont want to wait around to see if someone acting erratically will suddenly pull out a weapon, but is kindness something that could change our current social climate, even a little? Replies have been lightly edited for length and clarity.