The Death of Jordan Neely

Was the tragedy an example of vigilantism—or self-defense?

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)

If you’ve ever lived in New York City, as I did for most of my life, you know how it feels when a panhandler announces himself to a crowded subway car. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention …

First comes sympathy, then a shameful twinge of resentment that the tranquility of your ride has been rudely interrupted by a fellow human being’s starvation. Then comes a sense of low-grade alarm.

Most panhandlers are harmless and move on to the next car after they’ve received a few donations. But to arrive at a state where one is reduced to begging for money on the subway usually involves mental illness or drug use or both, as everyone present is keenly aware. You know that the man before you is probably in an altered state of one sort or another.

And people in altered states, especially those with nothing to lose, are unpredictable.

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  1. Garbage Goober

    I have a bit of a problem with the racial tinge of what Shapiro is saying but I think his general premise is spot on. When the police are disincentivized (for whatever reason) to actually do their job, weird things happen when civilians have to step in and close the gaps. Walsh's take on the other hand is just devoid of nuance. Reminds me of when Steven Crowder and his CEO were smoking cigars with Kyle Rittenhouse. There's this faction on the political right that seems to think that really ugly vigilante justice is really manly. What happened wasn't a horrible situation where everyone involved (including the uninvolved police) looks bad, but the marine was righteous and heroic. Like the only mistake the marine made was not acting out sooner. Someone get this guy a medal. That line of thinking is why I'm not a Republican anymore. If you feel the need to pick out a good guy and a bad guy from every story, you are probably too online. Sometimes everyone ends up with egg on their face.

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  2. Olof

    Nick, I got a Dispatch subscription because of you. I loved you as AP on HotAir, writing what you did with evidence despite all the fecal matter thrown at you. Now I'm going to let my subscription lapse. You are fantastic when you have a thesis ("Chumps" is one of the best pieces I've ever read), but everything is now: "On the one hand, but on the other, but then again, but also possible..." You just game out situations that may happen on Earth 2, 3, 4, etc., and that is useless. I have no dog in this fight-- I'm prudent-- and I don't care how Trumpy Shapiro is, but you conflated his non-violent Tweet with carrying an "Authoritarian hammer". Is that what Jose Alba had when he stabbed a threat five times? Why not four? How excessive of the old man! And for his trouble, Bragg charged him with murder and $200,000 bail (later dropped among outcry).

    Been riding the subway for 20 years, and given my frame, have no chance of self defense unless I get lucky with my keys, which I now carry in my pocket instead of my bag. I'm proof of Shapiro's Tweet: there are too many violent nuts loose, and you don't know what/when they'll just annoy, cold-cock out of nowhere, etc. I'm not a Trumpy "Authoritarian hammer". I'm just trying to give myself a chance to fight back in a city in which Hochol and Bragg seem to have contempt for the law-ful. You don't have to turn every story into an anti-right populist screed. There are lots of "normies", and the nut left "protested" on the tracks, causing delays, and started fights with cops, who had nothing to do with Neely. But you think because some bottom-feeder MAGA nut on Twitter posted something racist, everyone right-of -center agrees, and thus the left has the "moral" ground? (That's kind of what you wrote; you should have been more clear to make a distinction if you meant otherwise.) The left running NYC is why I barely leave my apt. anymore. One of your worst ever. Enough.

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  4. Cato

    I didn't read Nick before he came to The Dispatch, and I don't find him impressive or persuasive since he's got here.

    He sets up straw men, and knocks them down or sets them ablaze with total abandon.

    I learned a little reading this - but I didn't learn much (and I wanted to learn a lot).

    I am not sure what America he is living in, but it is much easier for me to imagine that if a young, handsome, black Marine from Bed-Sty had choked out a hairy, raving, menacing, fecal-covered white vagrant in the same situation . . . we would not have the hysterical overreaction we are getting here.

    And I don't think the Trumpists would give anymore of a hoot for the white vagrant then they do for the black one. Can AOC, Hochul, and the media hysterics say the same?

    I think I'm done with Nick. Not worth the time it takes to sift his writing in hopes a speck of value.

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    Stephanie

    There has been a lot of discussion here about this incident, which none of us witnessed.

    My impression is that most people are assuming--based on a few facts and a lot of theorizing--that the killing was justified and are worried about the "Marine" (whose name has by now been released) having to suffer consequences.

    People seem to have come to a conclusion that he was a brave rescuer. I know I did after reading this article.

    Then I read an interview with the witness who recorded part of the incident on his phone. He describes how the incident developed up to the point when he began recording it.

    It doesn't look all that much much like the way people may have been imagining it went.

    https://www.curbed.com/2023/05/bystander-jordan-neely-recording-juan-vasquez-interview.html

    Since it's New York Magazine which has a paywall for some but not all articles, I copied it and edited out Vasquez's describing where he was going and changing trains and other background, for brevity:

    ‘I Wasn’t Thinking That Anybody Was Going to Die.

    There were dozens of bystanders to the murder of Jordan Neely — but only one, freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vasquez, recorded it and uploaded it to Facebook. By doing so, he inadvertently placed himself at the center of an ongoing debate about what bystanders should do when witnessing a violent confrontation. Curbed spoke to Vasquez about what he saw that day and what he experienced and thought about in the aftermath.

    Where were you headed on the subway? 
    I was on my way from Brooklyn to Yonkers. I had some interviews to do up there. Right at Broadway-Lafayette, where everything took place, is where I was going to switch trains to get on the 6 and go to Grand Central and head up to Yonkers.
    So then what happened? 
    We stopped at Second Ave., and I saw someone running toward the doors. The door was just about to close — three, five inches away from closing — when Jordan stuck his hand between them.
    . . . he stopped the door from closing and he got on the train. And he stood in the middle of the train car, and then he started yelling that he didn’t have food, that he didn’t have water. From what I understood, he was yelling that he was tired, that he didn’t care about going to jail.
    Was this when you began recording? 
    I tried to start filming from that moment, but I didn’t because I couldn’t see anything — it was too crowded. And then I heard him take off his jacket.  He bundled it up and just threw it on the floor, very violently. You could hear the sound of the zipper hitting the floor. At that moment, when he threw the jacket, the people who were sitting around him stood up and moved away. He kept standing there and he kept yelling.
    When did you see the man who restrained him? 
    It’s at that moment that this man came up behind him and grabbed him by the neck, and I think — I didn’t see, but I think — that move of grabbing him by the neck also led him to grab Neely by the legs with his own. They both fell. And then in like 30 seconds, I don’t know, we got to Broadway-Lafayette, and they were just there on the floor. You ask how many people out of 100 would have dared to do something like that, and I think that 98 will say: “No, I would wait to see one more sign that indicates aggression.”
    What happened at the subway station? 
    When the two doors opened, everyone rushed out, obviously afraid, because now there was an actual fight. I got out, and I was watching them on the floor with this other man helping to hold Neely down. And then there’s just this confusion over what to do, all these people standing around on the platform, and some of them were yelling, “Call the police, call the police.” There were a couple of people who approached the blond guy, they say he’s a marine, and asked him, “What’s going on?” And he told them to call the police. . .
    So the video you posted to Facebook started at this point. 
    I started to film from outside, through the window of the subway car, and then went back inside. They were just lying there. Then, when Jordan tried to escape again, they rolled over, and I could see his face and his attempts to escape. Then he wasn’t moving anymore, and we were all looking at each other, like, “What’s going on? Did he faint? What happened?” I got off the train, and I filmed another 30-second video where you can see it’s the F train. In that second video, you can see Neely is lying down and two guys are standing over him — the one who grabbed him and one other man. The second guy, he wanted to help. You can see in my first video that he never touches Jordan and never tries to restrain him; he is simply trying to listen to him and trying to tell the other one not to squeeze him so hard.
    Why do you think this situation escalated?
    Jordan wasn’t asking for money. Jordan wasn’t asking for food. He was lamenting that he didn’t have any, he was lamenting that he was fed up, that he didn’t mind going to jail, and, up until that point, everything was fine. As far as I saw, he stood still and that encouraged people to stay calm, to stay in their place. When he raised his jacket, that’s when people panicked a little and those who were around him moved. But he didn’t move either. These people who were standing between us, that couple did not move at all. They were just standing, watching him. They stayed there as if to say: “Well, until we see that there is some kind of risk.” To me, when Jordan throws his jacket, it is a way of saying: “There could be an act of violence here,” because those things do happen all the time, because just a year ago, there was a guy who went in and shot a lot of people on the train. And obviously, the marine, in the end, went too far. But the police also went too far in not arriving on time.
    This is a difficult question, and I don’t know if you can really answer it, but I’m just going to ask you. Lots of people feel like you could have done something. Do you feel that way now?
    I am an immigrant — my wife got a visa almost six years ago, and we came here. I was a reporter at Milenio in Mexico for 20 years. So, for a year, I was here learning a little English, taking care of my children. I kind of became Mr. Mom. And eventually I started doing little freelance jobs. And look, as an immigrant, we are in a situation that sometimes ties us down. We do not have the same rights. People always advise that you not get involved. Why get involved in something that could cause problems with your immigration status? You know that here in the U.S., if you so much as miss a stop sign, it could become a reason to be deported or not granted a permit.
    On the other hand, at some point in all this, I had the impulse to do something, whether to ask the other guy to let him go or whether to help Jordan escape or whether to say: “Let him go and between us, we can control him.” But, at some point I also got nervous, which is why I went in and out of the train car. And when I came back, I saw that there were two other people involved. Then I said to myself: “Well, let them help and let them try to resolve the matter.”

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      Rajeev

      Thank you for trying to provide additional context to this. These cases aren’t so easy because it’s hard to know in this case how we ourselves would’ve felt in the situation. The 15 minutes duration was really downplayed to me on news stories originally which is why I’m now more inclined to believe the marine was at some significant level of fault. If not legally then morally

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  7. Philip.R.M.Hunt

    Every self-defense case that results in death should go to a grand jury. That way there is no question of prosecutors abusing their discretion due to bias. The public seems to have more confidence in grand juries than prosecutors.

    I agree with Sarah in this case -on the evidence presented here a grand jury will likely find justifiable self defense and not indict.

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      Stephanie

      It seems like a stretch to call this a self-defense case, though, if you review the facts.

      A man was having a psychotic meltdown and not attacking anyone, much less the guy who killed him. The marine stepped out of the crowd and took him down. He may have thought he was preventing things from getting worse.

      Everyone else on the scene retreated. That implies he could also have done that since that’s the law in NY, not “stand your ground.” So even if he was one of the people who got garbage thrown at them, the reasonable and prudent action would be to get out of the car like the other riders did.

      Even if they hadn’t been at a stop it’s possible to go to the next car.

      But we’ll see how it plays out.

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      1. Olof

        I live in NYC-- people "retreating" is the problem. A few years ago (maybe deBlaz's last year?)-- you can look this up, but it is awful-- a man was raping a woman on a subway platform in the middle of the day. Someone took video like a voyeur, but in a perverse way, it helped NYPD catch the guy via facial recognition. But including the cameraman, there is a WHOLE CIRCLE of people, including strong men, just watching what's happening like they're watching zoo animals. The perp did not seem armed. NO ONE did anything. It would have been so easy to tackle him or at least knock him off the woman and pin him down. I still think about that poor woman (video posted has her face and both, er, "midsections" blurred). When some stepped forward, the perp just ran up the steps, and NO ONE even bothered to chase him or yell, "Catch him!" Even if people and the Marine left the car while Neely was on his unpredictable tear, Neely would have just followed them, too. Again, I live this. I'm not "pro-the-chokehold" guy; I'm just saying with the violent nuts let loose, the unpredictability is the scariest thing, and that's why so many have lost lives (eg, those pushed on subway tracks, etc.) or livelihoods (the rape victim). We have to let a non-political, thorough investigation happen (but good luck with that happening with Bragg in office).

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      3. Philip.R.M.Hunt

        I appreciate that you posted the NY Mag article that adds more testimony. However, your statement "Everyone else on the scene retreated. That implies he could also have done that..." suggests is that everyone else retreated prior to the Marine applying the chokehold. However, that is not supported by the article you cite which states:

        "When the two doors opened, everyone rushed out, obviously afraid, because now there was an actual fight."

        So it appears the retreat of others happened after the Marine applied the chokehold. There is no report of anyone retreating before the train got to the next station, which was the first good opportunity to retreat. Also, they could do so safely because Jordan was now immobilized.

        I have been in a similar situation in Portland about twenty-five years ago, when a white guy got on the train and started making threats to four Hispanic kids (but not me). The kids looked too scared to move. He was drunk, not crazy. I was able to engage him in conversation and de-escalate. Also, he did not throw anything. I think the throwing things at people is a major escalation that does justify counter force.

        One thing that baffles me is the continued reliance on the chokehold. I got training on that and it was not considered dangerous at that time - we were told almost everyone would survive it with no permanent damage. Events in the last few decades makes that seem doubtful. However, I also was trained other disabling techniques like Eskrima that relied on pinning and application of pain to acquire compliance, though some of those risk permanent damage. Why don't people use these other techniques? I am an old man now and have not been involved in that kind of training anymore so I don't know.

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          Stephanie

          Those are good questions. On further reading it seems Marines are trained to release a choke hold after 8 seconds.

          On the NY subways no one is forced into close proximity with a scary person who’s shouting or doing any of the things Neely did. Most cars have unlocked doors at either end and people can and often do move from one car to the next, often because they want to exit the train to the end of the platform they are picking their connecting train up from.

          People also have the option of moving into a cluster at the opposite end of the car. As they outnumber the person making a scene they could overcome him if he attacked anyone.

          Not being a New Yorker, Mr. Penny may have misjudged the situation.

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          1. Philip.R.M.Hunt

            Information on what training the Marine had regarding chokeholds would be relevant in judging his self-defense claim and if it can be shown he deviated from his training it would be detrimental to his claim. Why the Marine kept the chokehold on for as long is he did is probably the weakest part of his case.

            I am still not sold on the argument that he had a duty to retreat at that point, because an assault had already occurred. If you still want to salvage this argument, maybe look into the nature of the assault. What was the "garbage" that Neely threw? If it was a crumpled-up piece of paper, then you could argue that it was a trivial assault that a reasonable person would not respond to. However, if it were a dangerous object, such as a broken glass bottle or offensive object such as rotten food, then a claim to self-defense is stronger.

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      Rajeev

      Grand Juries unfortunately are just as political sometimes. The police officer whose chokehold killed Eric Garner got no legal penalties even though Garner was never a threat. But Staten Island is much friendlier venue for accused officers and the grand jury no-billed it. Even George W. Bush expressed outrage at that result.

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      1. Philip.R.M.Hunt

        Grand Juries do get it wrong sometimes and the Garner is one that could be questioned. No system is perfect and I have some ideas on how to improve but will leave that for another time.

        I think the cop got off in the Garner case because they are trained that chokeholds are low risk, which is probably not a good assessment.

        What disturbed me most in the Garner case is that the cops blew off his "I cannot breathe" as fake and did not render aid. Yeah, a lot of times people that say that are faking, but cops should be trained to take it seriously every time for those cases in which it is not fake.

        A lot of people criticize the police for bad judgement, but I think that is often misplaced. It is their training that is bad. When I was in the military, our training would emphasize that in dangerous situations fear will typically grip your mind which makes thinking difficult, so you should do as little thinking as possible and just do as you were trained to do. The only thinking you do is identify the situation and remember what you were trained to do in that situation.

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          Rajeev

          I think the thing that happens in cases like Eric Garner which makes people lose faith in grand juries is no charges at all are filed. That cop gets away without even being charged whereas everyday people get charges for assault all the time for things that aren't even injurious. I think of a situation at the time where Michelle Fields a reporter from Breitbart was grabbed by Corey Lewandowski at an event on camera and he was initially charged with simple battery. He is deplorable but that contact was far less than any concertgoer would experience 100 times at any busy concert or event. I remember at the time thinking they can file charges (which of course would be dropped) against him but New York couldn't charge the cop with Eric Garner's death not even criminally negligent homicide not even assault.

          Also, this effect can be seen in juries. We saw no justice for Trayvon Martin and it was easy to see why when you listened to the juror interviewed that essentially sounded like she was in love with George Zimmerman. How a juror like that ended up in the jury pool is beyond what we can understand as a public she just slipped past the lawyers. It's like Tom Cruise says in a Few Good Men that the case isn't going to be won by the law but by the lawyers.

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          1. Philip.R.M.Hunt

            My gut feeling at the time was that Zimmerman was guilty, but to convict you need to have the evidence to back it up. I followed the case closely and concluded that there just was not enough evidence to convict. I think that Zimmerman's behavior afterwards indicates that my gut feeling was probably right. The system is not perfect and it fails sometimes, but it fails in favor of the defendant. But I would rather have the evidence-based system of justice than one in which people can be convicted based on the jury's gut feelings or gives the benefit of the doubt to the prosecution.

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  8. Norcal

    Two points.

    First, it's not the 15 minutes that matter, but how many minutes after Neely stopped struggling, and whether the Marine considered him a threat to get up and harm people.

    Second, making rational judgments behind a keyboard is a far cry from being reasonable in a charged situation when the adrenaline is flowing. People say and do weird things when they're in shock.

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  9. Kevin M

    "The fact that Neely had been arrested for assault multiple times" and was "schizophrenic and ... depressed" shows that the justice system and the mental health system, which should have combined to place him in hospital, did nothing. They released him, repeatedly, back onto the street and apparently expected his fellow citizens to just tolerate the craziness and assaults.

    If we are looking for people to blame, it is within city government, not with those citizens who found it necessary to act.

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    Jeff Walden

    Based on this recitation of facts, I think you're being a little too generous here. Barring some further indication of intent, I agree it's not murder. But the duration here does seem excessive, perhaps negligently or recklessly so. And I think someone presumably actually trained in this should be presumed to have awareness of just how far one can go.

    What lesser charge should apply, I don't know. And maybe the grand jury will be used to reach a desired result while acting as scapegoat. But right now, this feels like too much to me for an event where the person in question was acting in noticeably alarming fashion but had not yet actually physically accosted anyone. Not when we are talking about deadly force.

    Still, all opinions subject to change as further facts come out.

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