A troubled life

From where we sit, the long and lethal chokehold Danny Penny applied to Jordan Neely on the F train last Monday was an egregiously excessive use of force. But no one should gloss over critical facts, as many progressive politicians have done, by insisting Neely was killed simply for being in need.

With a troubled history and a recent record of violence, he was being aggressive to straphangers. Had he not spiraled downward in that moment, threatening passengers and throwing garbage at them, there would never have been a confrontation.

Predictably, the very politicians on the far left who ignore that messy reality call Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul culpable for doing far too little to help Neely. And though they claim they want government to do more, they attacked Adams’ plan to try to force some mentally ill homeless people into treatment late last year.

Neely’s life was shaped by a horrifying tragedy: When he was 14, his mother was strangled. Though his Michael Jackson impersonations exuded joy, he was adrift—racking up dozens of arrests, at least four for assault. Outreach workers say he used K2, synthetic marijuana known to have dangerous effects on the brain.

The courts tried to steer him to services. He was in contact with one of the city’s Intensive Mobile Treatment Teams; in March 2020 he was taken to Bellevue Hospital.

The narrative contains many additional complexities. Added up, it clashes with the caricature of a poor and troubled man failed by a cruel government. Neely worsened despite well-intentioned interventions, not because he’d been systematically neglected.