On May 1, 2023, a 30-year-old homeless man named Jordan Neely boarded the F train in New York City. Neely appeared to be in the midst of some kind of mental health crisis, as witnesses describe him acting aggressively, screaming that he was hungry and thirsty and that he didn’t care if he went to jail or died. A few witnesses describe feeling threatened by Neely’s behavior. Soon, a 24-year-old man named Daniel Penny, who we later learned is a former Marine, jumped forward and put Neely in a chokehold. Minutes later, Neely was dead.
Neely’s death once again stoked our culture wars and our debate about crime, homelessness, and mental illness in American cities. Was Jordan Neely a casualty of white supremacy? Was he another example of a criminal justice system that has stopped enforcing crime, thus encouraging people to take matters into their own hands? Was Jordan Neely a victim of a mental health system that has failed both its patients and society? How could we have prevented this tragedy? And how should we prevent it going forward?
To dive into these questions and more, today on Honestly we have Rafael Mangual, Jonathan Rosen, and Kat Rosenfield. Mangual is a legal policy expert at the Manhattan Institute. Rosenfield is a novelist and a columnist for Unherd. And Rosen is the author of the book The Best Minds, which examines his childhood friendship with Michael Lauder, a graduate of Yale Law School who suffered a schizophrenic break and killed his pregnant fiancée. (You can check out our previous conversation with Rosen about that tragedy here.)
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On vigilance/vigilantes; apart from self-assigned vigilantes are normal non-intervening individuals who, when confronted with a surprise crisis will suddenly act out of character by assisting. During 1989 SF earthquake, I stopped a person from running towards traffic.
I live in SF and I ended a 33-year friendship because of Jordan Neely discussion with a leftist friend who has lived in NYC for 20+ years.
I enjoyed the thoughtful panel discussion. [Time 36:00] Q: Why can Mayor Adams not do the city-Gov change that voters want?
A: “APHA 2018 Policy Statement on Law Enforcement Violence as a Public Health Issue” is the blueprint that City-Gov in NYC, SF, LA, etc- used for Defund + much much more. It is a BLM-Utopian recipe, minus the police. Interference with prostitution, crime, drugs, homeless and mentally ill = capitalist oppression. The Equity Director inside each NYC department is essentially a BLM-dictator. Nothing will change until the mayor abolishes the Equity Program. Same for LA, SF, Chicago and 97 other cities.
I assigned SF Supervisors the tasks of transparency by June 30, 2023. They must name and describe each secret Equity Project for each city department- including Police, Schools, Public Health.
I informed SF Supervisors that APHA blueprint and Defund are fraud, but they ignore evidence and pretend everything is legitimate. (No Due Process).