Jordan Neely has just become the George Floyd of 2023.
Neely was reportedly acting hostile on the F Train in Lower Manhattan when a Marine Veteran put him into a chokehold and held him down until officers arrived, reports CNN.
Neely reportedly died as a result of that chokehold, and now it is almost a given that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is going to slap him with a manslaughter charge, if not murder.
Tough Road
This is a tough call because we don't really know what led to the Marine veteran reacting in that way.
If Neely was threatening people, it is pretty easy to justify him being taken down. The argument on the flipside of that is how long is too long?
Former Manhattan prosecutor turned criminal defense lawyer Mark Bederow told Fox News, "Even if you're initially allowed to use force, it has to be proportional, and a 15-minute chokehold, that's a pretty long time. At the point that the threat is immobilized, you're no longer permitted to use force."
He added, "People calling this murder need to slow down. I don't think anyone who is looking at this seriously thinks this guy had intent to kill a mentally disturbed man or acted with depraved indifference to human life."
Former prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon, who left the DA's office when Bragg took over, stated, "At what point do we view him as a good Samaritan versus someone who goes too far and takes the law into his own hands?
"I feel for both parties, I really do. Of course, the man who died paid the ultimate price," reports Fox News.
Let me just play off her comments to make two points.
First, if they had the more police on the transit system, this would have never have happened because officers would have been there to take him off the train. We can even say that had they responded quicker than 15 minutes, Neely would still be alive today.
To continue that point, this man had a record as long as his arm, with plenty of assault charges. From what I have read, it seems pretty clear that he had people scared on that train, so was someone capable of restraining this man just supposed to sit back and watch this mentally deranged individual carry out another attack?
Obviously, the people on the train had no idea of his record, but let's also be honest about what has been going on in NYC lately on the subway. People are being attacked, some even pushed in front of moving trains, on a fairly regular basis.
Would it make people happier if he had assaulted someone and put them in the hospital before something was done?
My second point is that Democrats are using this as a rallying cry and trying to make it about race because the Marine is a white guy.
Let me ask this question… I read this man was arrested more than three dozen times, yet he was back on the street. If he was mentally ill and dangerous, how come nobody cared about him until he was dead?
They were literally releasing a time bomb on the streets, then after it blows up, everyone wants to point fingers.
New York leadership need only find a mirror and look at it, because that is who is really responsible for this man's death. When you put bad people back out on the street, bad things happen.
Source: Fox News
