Death in the subway: Who’s to blame?

“Making people uncomfortable can now get you killed,” said Roxane Gay in The New York Times. We’ve seen proof of that all over America in recent weeks, and last week, there was another fear killing—this time, on a New York City subway. Jordan Neely, 30, mentally ill and homeless, boarded a crowded train and began screaming that he was hungry, thirsty, “fed up,” and “ready to die,” shouting, “I don’t mind getting life in prison.” A white Marine veteran, Daniel Penny, jumped up and wrestled the Black man to the ground and held him in a chokehold for more than 10 minutes. A bystander video shows Neely struggling before going limp, but Penny maintained his grip despite being warned Neely might be dying. Penny, 24, is under investigation but was not arrested, sparking citywide protests.

“Neely didn’t just yell,” said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. He “threw garbage” at some passengers and threw his jacket on the ground, signaling he was ready to fight. To say he was “lynched” or “publicly executed”—as New York City’s far-left Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman tweeted—is outrageous. If people felt threatened by Neely, they had reason to: He’d been arrested dozens of times, including for punching a 67-year-old woman in the face, causing serious injuries. The tragic truth, said Rich Lowry in National Review, is that “no one really cared about Neely, not enough to get him the help he needed.” He was “simply another deeply troubled man who haunted our streets” until his untimely death served “a convenient political narrative” about “the evils of racism and of the power structures of our society.” The real question is why delusional schizophrenics like Neely are not housed in court-mandated psychiatric care, and are instead allowed to roam streets and subways.

Everyone wants “to get suffering people the help they need,” said Jay Caspian Kang in The New Yorker. But Neely had hundreds of interactions with social workers and mental health professionals. After a judge sent him to a treatment facility in February, offering him a fresh start, Neely abandoned the program within two weeks. Many of us encounter people in “psychological distress,” said Elizabeth Bruenig in The Atlantic, and have no idea how to respond. Our “peaceful commons” are gone, and a culture of fear and violence is overriding basic compassion. “This is the country we have become.”