I feel compelled to howl into the wind about Jordan Neely. He was killed by Daniel Penny on the New York Subway on 1st May 2023. Some of the circumstances are not disputed. Mr. Neely was homeless and had a history of mental illness. On that day, he boarded the train, shouting about his need for help. Mr. Neely was unarmed and made no physical contact with any of the passengers. Nonetheless, Mr. Penny interpreted his behaviour as threatening and decided to restrain Mr. Neely by placing him in a “choke hold”. After Mr. Neely had been subdued and had apparently lost consciousness, Mr. Penny continued to strangle him, for about six minutes, until he died.

Yesterday, Mr. Penny was acquitted. Until we have something better, I accept the jury system, even when, as in this case, it makes what seem to be perverse decisions. I didn’t witness the incident, I’m not a lawyer, I wasn’t in court and I’m sure some of the outcome related to what charges were pressed and how they were argued. But as one local politician has succinctly put it: “Does anyone seriously doubt, that if a black homeless person had killed a white former Marine in similar circumstances, the verdict would have been different?”

For me, the real issue is that, once again, a black man has been killed in public by a white man, with the justification that the black man represented a danger. Although the legal outcome wasn’t the same, I see very little difference between the deaths of Jordan Neely and George Floyd. In both cases, even allowing for the possibility that initial behavour might have been seen as threatening, the white man continued to strangle the black man long after it was “necessary”. In both cases, the white man assumed a degree of authority from the State. Floyd was killed by a policeman. Neely was killed by a former soldier, who apparently felt it was still his role to “defend” the public and that he could use whatever force he deemed necessary, with impunity. One of the troubling differences though, is that, so far, the death of Jordan Neely has not sparked anything like the Black Lives Matter reaction. Instead, there is a sense of resignation.

Another thing that distinguishes the incidents is Neely being killed on the NYC Subway. Anyone who has ridden on it, particularly in the last few years, knows that homeless people – and others – behaving in what can sometimes feel like an erratic, eccentric, possibly threatening manner, is a frequent occurrence. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had such encounters. It can be unnerving. But I have never witnessed such an incident where the homeless person – almost always black – posed an actual physical threat.

This case illustrates, once more, the deep sense of a place living in fear, with young, black men frequently seen as the personification of threat and some white people feeling entitled to use whatever force they consider necessary to control “them”. It may sound trite, but having researched the subject a bit, I’d argue this is closely related to the practice of lynching. Lynchings were not, usually, random acts of mob rule. They were ritualised and often carried out in public, with the active or tacit support of officialdom. They were also conducted with a sense of moral righteousness, probably in response to a perceived threat or transgression. Some of the reaction to Penny’s actions have had a very similar tone.

Of course, a large part of the underlying cause of Mr. Neely’s death is homelessness, poverty and the mental ill health they can lead to. Last week, NYC unveiled its latest policy measures aimed at solving the acute shortage of available housing for people in need. It’s not going to work (I’ll post some more about this). Housing is the key signifier of a chronically divided city. In some ways, Jordan Neely was as much a victim of that, as he was of Daniel Penny.