CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – I was allowed to ride the subway alone when I was 8 years old. That was almost certainly a parenting mistake. The New York that I grew up in had twice the homicides that it does today.
I remember the Bernie Goetz subway shooting of 1985. Anyone who rode the subway then knew exactly what was about to happen if they were suddenly surrounded by four hoodlums who asked for money. Only Goetz, who’d already been mugged once in the subway, had a gun. He shot and wounded his would-be attackers, who were, in fact, on their way to rob an electronics store.
A New York jury acquitted him. The sentiment among New Yorkers was “if that was me, I’d wish that I had a gun.” Geotz served 8 months for illegal gun possession.
Fast-forward 38 years. The subways are overrun with the homeless and mentally ill. Jordan Neely was a diagnosed schizophrenic, who’d been in and out of foster care since he was 14. He’d been arrested 42 times, most recently a few weeks earlier for throwing a woman onto the platform, disfiguring her face. For Neely, the subway was his asylum of last resort.
And there he was, being loud and getting into the faces of other subway riders, when a former marine Daniel Penny did something; he put Neely into a choke hold until help arrived. Neely’s windpipe was crushed, killing him. Every New Yorker has seen someone like Jordan Neely in the subway. It is obvious what’s happening. There isn’t enough help available for the mentally ill, so they live in the subway. Everyday New Yorkers see them, sleeping on cardboard in walkways, using the stations as an open-trench toilet, sleeping on the trains taking up multiple seats. Most people don’t even bother reporting people like Neely to the police. It’s a waste of time. They know nothing will be done.
I’m sad that Jordan Neely is dead. I’m sad that we have hotel rooms for illegal immigrants, but we have nothing for Neely. He’s left to beg and struggle and menace others. If I was on that train, I’d be glad that Daniel Penny was riding with me. He was able to subdue someone who could have been a threat to me. I wish he hadn’t killed him. But we all know this isn’t a story about manslaughter, it’s a story about a dysfunctional city.
Chris Conley
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