Today, Explained - The killing of Jordan Neely

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

A subway rider choked to death Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man known to New Yorkers for his impersonations of Michael Jackson. WNYC reporters Matt Katz and Samantha Max explain the complexity of the incident. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard with help from Miles Bryan, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Video from Saturday shows demonstrators hold the doors open and stop an F train around 6 p.m. Over the weekend, some New Yorkers protested a killing on the subway in the subway. Protesters actually climbed onto the tracks, which is quite a dangerous scenario. Thirteen people, we've reported, were arrested as a result of that. One week ago, a 24-year-old rider named Daniel Penny put in a chokehold a fellow passenger who was acting erratically. Penny killed Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old man who was known to New Yorkers for his Michael Jackson impersonations.

Neely was also homeless. Mayor Eric Adams gave a kind of non-answer to the question of what subway riders should do in these kinds of situations. We cannot just blatantly say what a passenger should or should not do in a situation like that. We should allow the investigation to take its course. Coming up on Today Explained, two New York reporters on a killing that has divided the city.

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Visit connectsontario.ca. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King, and you are? I am Samantha Max. I am a public safety reporter at WNYC and Gothamist. My name is Matt Katz. I'm also a public safety reporter at WNYC, the public radio station in New York and Gothamist. Take me back to Monday a week ago. So there was a train that was passing through kind of from the Lower East Side, making its way uptown. And we don't know exactly what happened,

but based off of the account of one man who was inside the train car, he's an independent journalist who witnessed some sort of altercation between a man who we now know as Jordan Neely in the midst of what seems like it was a mental health crisis. Freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vasquez recorded the incident. He says Neely boarded the uptown F train Monday in Soho, screaming and ranting aggressively. Start to yelling, violence language. I don't care if I die. I don't care if I going to jail. He was screaming that he was hungry and that he was thirsty, that he was tired and that

he was even willing to die. And that according to this independent journalist, this man threw his jacket onto the ground. And at some point after that, he ends it up in train car who they told me that the train stopped for several minutes and then everyone was told to get off the train and that's when they found this big commotion and they saw Jordan Neely on the ground still in a choke hold and you know people were just trying to make sense of what was happening but it seems like no one was able to successfully stop this person from continuing to choke Jordan Neely until he died. Who is the man that put Jordan Neely in a chokehold? His name is Daniel Penny. He's 24. He's from Long Island. He was a Marine. He was in the Marines. He is currently not active. He is now lawyered up. He has a very prominent attorney. In fact, the attorney that he hired is a Republican who ran for district attorney in

Manhattan a couple of years ago against the Democrat, who is now the one in charge of investigating this case. So there's an interesting political dynamic to that situation. And he also released a statement through the attorney on Friday night. Attorneys for Mr. Penny releasing a statement Friday night offering his condolences for Mr. Neely and writing, quote, When Mr. Neely began aggressively threatening Daniel Penny and other passengers, Daniel, with the help of others, acted to protect themselves until help arrived. He added Daniel never intended to harm Mr. Neely and could not have foreseen his untimely death. Then it goes on to say Mr. Neely had a documented history of violent and erratic behavior, the apparent results of ongoing and untreated mental illness. So that's interesting because obviously Daniel Penny would not have known that

at the time. They were strangers to each other. But this is some context that his lawyer is using and perhaps projecting what the defense would be if Penny's charged with manslaughter or murder. Mr. Neely was aggressively threatening him. We do not see that in any of the video that we have. We have not heard that exactly from other eyewitnesses yet. We know that there's no evidence that Neely touched anybody on the train. But clearly, Penny and he says other passengers felt scared. And that's what led to this. Tell me what we know about Jordan Neely. Who was he? He's somebody that we know from both the witness to this incident and from people who knew him for many years. As somebody who had long struggled with mental illness, his life at a young age was quite tragic. His mother was murdered when he was 14. She was actually

strangled to death, which just has an eerie resonance here. And he testified at the trial for the man who killed her, who was convicted. He was a domestic partner of hers. And since then, according to reports from relatives, from people who knew him, from homeless outreach workers, from other homeless people, he struggled with mental illness. And he made a living, from what we could tell, as a moonwalking Michael Jackson impersonator who danced on the subways and on the subway platforms of New York City since at least 2009. Here we go, here we go. He was very well known to commuters. He was beloved by many people because he was very good at what he did. He was part of a little community of Michael Jackson impersonators

who worked the streets of New York City. Our colleague spoke to somebody who knew him from foster care, said he used to share the money he made from doing this impersonation on the subways and the platforms, and he used to share it with other kids from foster care. Jordan used the money that he made on the subway trains to pay for our haircuts, to pay for our laundry, to pay for our food, because our foster care parents were not giving us those resources.

So we have not focused on Nealey's criminal history so far in our reporting. We've asked about it from the NYPD. They are not giving any official statement about his criminal history. But other outlets who have gotten information leaked to them by law enforcement have reported on many arrests for low-level offenses that Neely had in his past. There was an interesting story about a victim of Neely's who came forward and gave an on-the-record interview to the New York Daily News who said he was punched in the face by Neely just while standing there on a subway platform a few years face by Neely just while standing there on

a subway platform a few years ago. Neely was arrested after that, and the victim there thought Neely should be getting treatment for what seemed to him like untreated drug addiction and mental illness. So we know that he had many brushes with the law by nature of the fact that he lived on the streets and lived in the subways. You know, I was born in Brooklyn. I lived in New York for much of my adult life, and I left in 2019. But my memory of New York is that it is not uncommon on a subway train to see someone like Jordan Neely, who appears to either be struggling or is kind of yelling, acting out. I missed the era of COVID, but I wonder broadly,

is what Jordan Neely was doing, is that an uncommon thing to see on a subway in New York these days? It is not uncommon. I mean, and I only can speak from anecdotal experience. I also grew up in New York. I've been on again, off again, riding the subways for 25 years.

And from my anecdotal experience, there are more people who are displaying signs of mental illness or drug use on the trains now than they were several years ago. I've had personal encounters. I was on my way to WNYC a few months ago to guest host a radio show. It was eight in the morning. Relatively, you know, enough people were on the train. It was not empty in any respect. And a man who appeared at first to be just an aggressive panhandler somehow picked me out of the crowd, got in my face, spit in my face. I was wearing a mask, fortunately, and then moved on.

And part of what I found a little unsettling about it was nobody else on the train intervened. I understand that, but nobody even said anything to me afterwards. Like, hey, are you okay? Or, hey, sorry about that. And I think what that indicates is it's so normal. You know, I doubt the people, once they got off the train, thought much about it or texted a friend about the incident. So yes, this is a common thing. I've spoken to mental health experts in the last few days and they say, listen, you know, there is no greater propensity for mentally

ill people to be violent than the general population at large. In other words, we needn't be that scared of somebody who's displaying signs of being in a mental health crisis. On the other hand, it's scary, right? I mean, when someone's acting erratically and maybe not wearing shoes or swinging around some object,

it is hard not to be unsettled and perhaps scared in that environment. I mean, this has become a huge part of the conversation around public safety in New York City in the last couple of years. During the pandemic, there was a huge dip in ridership on the subways. And when you have fewer people, you just have fewer eyes on situations. And I think, you know, it also became a space where perhaps people who were experiencing homelessness were flooding to the subways. They have always been there, but, you know, they're continuing to be there with fewer other riders around.

So it becomes sort of a self-perpetuating cycle where there are people who are afraid to ride the subway, so then they don't ride and then ridership continues to drop. That being said, you know, it's still very rare for there to be violent crimes happening on the subways, especially compared to historic times, but it has become a huge point of contention for the elected officials in New York City and in New York State. Both Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul have made a huge point of flooding the subways with police officers. They are in the process of installing surveillance cameras on every single subway car. They're sending mental health professionals into the subways. Here's what we're calling it. Cops, cameras, care. It's easier to remember the three C's. The subway plan is a comprehensive civic strategy that will do more than deal with a temporary fix.

You can't put a band-aid on a cancerous sore. That is not how you solve the problem. You must remove the cancer and start the healing process. The mayor and the governor have gotten a lot of criticism for plans that they've put in place to forcibly remove people who seem to be in the midst of a mental health crisis. So, you know, a lot of New Yorkers are just really conflicted about it. OK, we're going to leave it there. We'll be back with Matt Katz and Samantha Max, both reporters for WNYC. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket.

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to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Stand clear of the closing doors, please. Today Explained, Samantha Max and Matt Katz have both been covering Jordan Neely's killing for WNYC in New York. Sam, all this happens a week ago, and what happens in the days after?

This independent journalist who we've mentioned, he had put a video on Facebook of the incident. And the New York Post picked up that video. They spoke with this reporter. And suddenly the story overnight goes viral. And by Wednesday, there was a protest that was planned on the subway platform where all of this kind of came to a head. Dozens this afternoon took to the platform at the Broadway Lafayette station protesting his death. So I was on the platform with dozens of people who were just very concerned about what had happened. The message to law enforcement is very simple. Jordan Neely deserves justice.

And when they chose not to arrest his killer, they sent a very clear and loud message to us that they thought Jordan Neely's life doesn't matter. And then shortly after that, the medical examiner rules that the death is homicide. I should note that that is not a legal term. It's a medical term. But, you know, it's essentially a finding that someone has died at the hands of another person was actually the chokehold that caused his death, the medical examiner was ruling that that was what happened. So then, of course, from there, you have people wondering, we have this ruling from the medical examiner, why have no charges been filed? And the Manhattan DA's office comes out with a statement saying, essentially, please

be patient. We are investigating and we're asking anyone who might have witnessed this to come forward. And that's still where we're at right now. Sam, you were at a protest and you talk about how people there were feeling. Let me ask you both more broadly as you talk to New Yorkers, what are you hearing? I think people are just really upset and disheartened. I mean, that being said, though, like I think it is kind of a Rorschach test, because if you look at my Twitter DMs right now, there are some people that are not upset that this happened. And, you know, I think it really is just kind of a litmus test to see how people react to something like this. I was speaking with two men who I had mentioned who were on the train and they came onto the platform as all of this was going down. Their names were James Kings and Johnny Grima. They both throughout their lives have experienced homelessness. And I think for

them, it was just a really scary scene to stumble into because James Kings, he was telling me like he felt as a Black man who has lived much of his life unhoused, like that could have been him. And he just was really scared by that and just feeling very unsettled by it. And I think they both also felt really helpless. Like they had stumbled onto this scene when it was too late for them to do anything. And yet they still felt like they should have done more. I had assumed like these guys had his best intention in mind but they didn't and the way that he was moving him around on the ground was really aggressive. And you saw that happening? And I saw that happening. His eyes were staring off. He wasn't

moving. He was dead. You know I did not realize he was dead when I seen him. But I tried to, I walked up, I poured a little water on his forehead, but then the guy that choked him out told me to stop. And, you know, he took a little step forward, kind of aggressive. And unfortunately, I stepped off. You know, I should have taken command of the situation from him. You know? But that's something I have to live with.

This is totally, as Sam said, a prism for how people view so many different hot-button issues. Safety in public places, the treatment of young Black men, the broadening mental health crisis in the wake of COVID, the effectiveness, the usefulness of policing. And it's become, through the media and social media, a major debate now in the larger national culture war. I mean, despite a lack of details that we have about what's going on, we already had Elon Musk liking a tweet referring to Jordan Neely as a worthless individual. And that's, you know, you see that kind of rhetoric now. So, and then the question is for so many people and the debate is, was the person who put him in a chokehold a bloodthirsty racist? Or was he a hero who was protecting innocent commuters? Is this about the government's failure to provide shelter and food to the poor because Neely reportedly of the fact that people have to take matters into their own hands. So this is going to be a continuing conversation. And I feel like it's going to shadow our politics in the city and maybe

beyond the city for quite a while. Matt, I wonder if you can put some of this in context. So there are instances, some very, very famous instances in New York history of either what was described as vigilantism or people not intervening when somebody was being hurt or even killed. What might New Yorkers, longtime New Yorkers, be thinking about as they think about this incident? One of my earliest New York City memories is Bernie Goetz. And he was a white man who shot four unarmed young black men on the subway in 1984. Vigilantism will not be tolerated in this city. You're not going to have instant justice meted out by anybody because that's not justice. Police reported receiving more than 500 calls praising the man who shot the teenagers, three

of whom have arrest records, according to police. I felt the gunman was right. And him taking a vigilante type response to crime in the city leads other people to feel that they can do it too. It can be harmful to all of us. There's another case from a couple of decades before that, Kitty Genovese. This story has changed through the years. Her murder in 1964 shocked the collective conscience of New York City and eventually the world.

But what do we really know about what happened to Kitty Genovese? The urban legend around it is that this woman was murdered and she screamed and nobody came to help her. While many of the facts behind that original report turned out not to be true, the image of New Yorkers standing by as a young woman was killed has become a part of the fabric of New York City's history. And that was brought up in the wake of this incident because there were other people on the train car who were either involved in helping the person who was doing the chokeholding or standing by. So those are the two major incidents. What about more recently?

I think one thing that definitely comes to mind was early in 2022, there was a woman named Michelle Goh who was walking on the platform at the Times Square station. And a man in the midst of a mental health crisis threw her onto the tracks and a car hit her and killed her. Friends say Goh spent the last decade advocating for the homeless and was trying to help those like her alleged killer. And that was a situation that I think really scared a lot of New Yorkers because it was just a completely random encounter. And then just a couple months later, we had on another subway car a man named Frank Robert James, who ended up opening fire into a crowded subway car at rush hour. Miraculously, he did not end up killing anyone,

but he did severely harm a lot of people. And that was another man who was struggling with mental illness. He posted hours of rambling, profanity-laced videos on YouTube and other social media platforms that attracted little or no attention. This one from a month and a half ago when he criticized the mayor's plan tackling homelessness in the subways. Their plan is doomed for failure.

He since has pleaded guilty and that's a case that, you know, I think again sparked a lot of concern among New Yorkers and folks who I've been talking to in the months since. There are definitely certain people who have changed their ridership habits because of it, but there are also New Yorkers who are still every single day taking the train in spite of it and just kind of keeping it in

the back of their mind. When we bring our thoughts back to Jordan Neely, are there policies that might have prevented this incident? Is there something that should have been in place that currently isn't? I mean, I think the subways have been flooded with cops, and yet it is impossible to have a police officer on every single subway car all the time. So when this happened with Jordan Neely, there were no police officers there, and it took several minutes, even once they were on the platform, for police officers to arrive. So that is certainly question number one of how many officers is enough and whether or not police officers actually do make people feel safer and who they're making feel safer because certainly at the protests I was at, there were some people who felt less safe having the police officers

around. I think another thing is, you know, the mayor and the governor, they've been sending these outreach teams into the subways, particularly at the stops that are at the end of the line once the train has stopped before it turns back around, where they are often finding folks experiencing homelessness. And the idea is that they'll be offering resources to them, trying to get them the care that they need. But it's still, you know, only scratching the surface of the amount of need that's had. And we also have a huge shortage of, you know, affordable housing and places for folks to go. And a bunch of psychiatric hospital beds that went offline during the pandemic and are just now starting to be brought back online. But even so, there's just more need than there is capacity to serve at this point.

Samantha Max and Matt Katz are both public safety reporters for WNYC in New York City. Today's show was produced by Avishai Artsy and edited by Matthew Collette. It was engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey and fact-checked by Laura Bullard. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. Thank you.