Jordan Neely needed help – not a death sentence. We're failing people like him. | Opinion
Jordan Neely's life mattered. It should not have mattered that he was experiencing homelessness and was in the midst of a mental health crisis.
About twice a week, I commute to Paste BN’s office in New York City – tap my card to pay the $2.90 subway fare, walk through the turnstile, wait on the platform and ride from my corner of Brooklyn into Manhattan. They’re the same steps that more than half of New York City workers took on their commute in 2019 − an anomaly for the United States, even among other large cities.
Recently, I’ve spent my time on the train thinking about Jordan Neely.
Neely, a 30-year-old former Michael Jackson impersonator, was killed on the floor of an uptown F train in May 2023 after fellow passenger Daniel Penny put him in a choke hold for six minutes. On Monday, Penny was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide by a jury, days after Judge Maxwell Wiley dismissed a charge of second-degree manslaughter. Penny will walk free.
People on the right have celebrated Penny, saying he acted to protect the people on the subway. His supporters donated more than $3 million for his legal expenses on a Christian fundraising platform. It completely disregards the fact that Neely was unarmed and in mental distress.
"I miss my son," Andre Zachary, Neely's father, told reporters outside of the courthouse. "My son didn't have to go through this. I didn't have to go through this, either. It hurts."
This case is about more than public safety – it’s about racial justice, homelessness and mental health care. It’s about how our systems fail vulnerable members of our society. It’s about the human being who lost his life, and the ways he was failed while alive.
Jordan Neely's killer will walk free
On May 1, 2023, Neely stuck his hand through the door of a subway train at the Broadway-Lafayette station in lower Manhattan. He threw his jacket down, began yelling and pacing in the subway car.
“I don’t have food, I don’t have a drink, I’m fed up,” he said, according to a freelance journalist who filmed the events. Penny’s lawyers say the former Marine, who was 24 years old at the time, heard Neely threaten to kill, although the mother he supposedly said it to did not. Neely was unarmed; all he had in the pocket of his hoodie was a muffin.
Within moments, Penny wrestled Neely to the ground, putting him in a choke hold. Penny held onto Neely for nearly six minutes, even after he stopped struggling. In one video, a male passenger can be heard telling Penny to let go after Neely defecated on himself.
When the police questioned Penny, he described Neely as a “crackhead.”
“These guys are pushing people in front of trains and stuff,” Penny told detectives.
The coroner ruled Neely’s death a homicide. Defense attorneys say it was also the result of cardiac arrest and a blood flow issue due to sickle cell disease.
Either way, a man is dead because another subway passenger chose to put him in a headlock.
Who was Jordan Neely?
Neely suffered from mental illness starting at age 14, when his mother was murdered by her boyfriend. He entered the foster care system. In 2013, he began having run-ins with law enforcement. He experienced homelessness intermittently during his life.
Neely's life mattered. It should not have mattered that he was experiencing homelessness and was in the midst of a mental health crisis.
I understand that people do not want to feel uncomfortable on public transportation. I also think Penny, or anyone else on the subway, could have acted in ways to de-escalate the situation that did not involve a choke hold.
"If the city just wants this to be a playground for the rich, that is the most dangerous outcome for all of us," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told The Cut in a 2023 interview on Neely's death. "We are all subject to violence if the value of our life is measured by our income, or measured by our mental health, or measured by our race."
Handling mental health calls
Neely’s death also demonstrates a failure by police to act in a way that could have saved his life. It calls into question whether law enforcement, as opposed to first responders or health care professionals, are the best people to be answering mental health calls.
Despite finding Neely not breathing when they arrived, police officers did not give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and took minutes to begin chest compressions. In testimony, Sgt. Carl Johnson said he didn’t tell his officers to give Neely mouth-to-mouth, fearing they would contract AIDS (which is not transmissible by saliva) or another disease.
Instead of being treated like a person experiencing a mental health crisis, Neely was treated as a perpetrator. It’s hard not to think about how these moments could have played out differently had a health care professional been the one to answer the call.
In some New York City precincts, that’s where B-HEARD comes in. B-HEARD, the Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division, is a pilot program that dispatches health care workers to 911 mental health calls. Since spring 2021, it has expanded to 31 precincts in every borough but Staten Island.
This isn't the only city to have done so: There are more than 100 response units like B-HEARD across the United States.
In the 2023 fiscal year, B-HEARD responded to almost 15,000 calls. Despite this, police still respond to 70% of mental health calls in the city.
In part, this is due to the size of the program. B-HEARD only operates in 31 of the city’s 77 police precincts. The area in which Neely’s death occurred is not serviced by the program. New York City officials need to address that and continue expanding the program until it is in every precinct in the city.
Follow Paste BN elections columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter: @sara__pequeno