Murder of Jordan Neely on the Subway

Those are all good and relevant questions. The kind that needs to be sorted out here. I think you could come up with scenarios where somebody who was extremely verbally abusive, threatening, and acting out violently such that a bystander could be compelled to intervene. If a guy doing that towards a woman is that sufficient? How about a child?

What we don’t see is exactly what took place before the restraint. Did the marine intervene and then the dude become aggressive? Did the guy go straight for the choke hold. Those questions are all relevant to whether this was a justified intervention, manslaughter or even murder. We just don’t know.

I am quite sure if some white mentally ill guy were yelling the N word at black people in an aggressive and possibly violent fashion that the usual suspects here would be quite sympathetic to someone who intervened physically.

It’s as if it is a reflex - black, homeless, mentally ill. Conversation over! No more facts or context needed!!

 

3 minutes of chokehold on motionless victim? Manslaughter each and every time. Murder depending on who’s doing it.

 

I'm on board with everything you said here, nothing I can disagree with. But every time we try to divert resources from the police to be able to introduce alternative options, look what happens. One of the reasons for the lack of options is police power and its relationship to political power. Instead, incidents like what happened on the subway get framed as failures of policing, lack of order (implying the need for more vigilante action or people taking matters into their own hands however well intended), out of control crime etc. So even if you dont want to take money away from police, the political winds still push toward even greater police funding, which again, diverts resources away from potential alternatives. Instead of doing the hard things, its just "well lets have a cop on every subway car that'll stop this." We just throw more money at policing, which even if you arent on team 'abolish the police,' has diminishing returns no matter how much money you throw at them.

 

Like I posted, the ones i know don’t do that.

 

So they would only intervene in public with their weapon if it was themselves who were threatened?

 

I can’t answer that question. Just that their carry is for personal protection. No one knows how they will react if someone else is threatened until it happens. Speaking for myself I think I would come to the aid of a person being attacked. I’d certainly not use my gun unless totally necessary.

 

Ok, it is a personal thing, but the whole "good guy with a gun" thing implies that self-defense applies to defense of others too.

 

Likewise, I will generally agree here.

I will also agree that there may be instances where funding could be used more efficiently elsewhere vs the police. But that’s not the way we do things. We identify something that isnt working optimally, reduce or eliminate it, and don’t provide a workable alternative. Decades ago we identify a problem of oppressive psychiatric wards, some giving poor care, so we eliminate them and provide no alternative other than either family takes care of them or they roam the street. We take away tactics that cops use, like chokeholds, batons, etc and give them no other alternatives except training to always protect yourself first and always assume somebody will try to kill you and always assume they want to steal your gun. Maybe instead provide them with tailored and proven ju Jitsu techniques? No, because liberals equate that as violence and conservatives don’t want to pay for it.

In my mind having somebody wandering around with 40 arrests and an open warrant for breaking bones in an old lady’s face is unacceptable. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. And it did. Given we as a society refuse to intervene, we instead put the burden on less qualified individuals. I think for those individuals we should at least give them the benefit of the doubt, and let the process play out.

 

Soho, you earlier mentioned the accused’s characterization of service. If it was honorable and he had exemplary record with individual awards, good conduct, and noteworthy performance, is that relevant to how we should view him? It’s not a trick question. I don’t even know his name, much less his record.

Someone else speculated that the accused probably had some military martial arts training. That is a fact. All Marines are required to receive instruction in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP). No matter what his occupational specialty was, he would have received training in the first two levels: tan belt and grey belt. If he was ground combat arms, he would have been required to receive certification up to green belt. If he wanted to be more competitive for promotion, then he would have taken initiative to certify as brown, black, or go beyond as an instructor. Yes, that training includes various types of blood chokes.

 

Not necessarily the issue is mostly about the length of the hold it’s murder or manslaughter either way but if he was dishonorably discharged they might give us a clue as to his mindset. A point of curiosity no more.

 

You only get a dishonorable discharge as a result of a general court-martial for the equivalent of a felony. We would probably already know that if it was the case. The worst characterization one can receive administratively is a general discharge under other than honorable conditions, also known as an OTH. But to be fair if that’s relevant, then it’s also relevant if he was a stellar Marine. Either we consider his characterization of service or we don’t.

 

Agree I say we don’t. The facts can speak amply for themselves.

 

It is now coming out that people at the scene were telling the guy who had him in the chokehold to let him go because they were worried he'd kill him, including after the homeless man went limp and pooped himself. The guy refused. The facts seem to be getting worse for him.

 

Eric Adams is garbage. (For many, many reasons.)

 

The killer (thin but ripped) released a statement predictably saying he was acting in self defense and didn’t mean to kill him.
Oops….

 

I guess we are just not on the same page here. You apparently are looking for public officials to make rapid judgements on limited information, because certain values must be amplified, and such amplification is more important than whatever rights the eventual defendant may have and eventual facts may unveil. I’m of the perspective that within reason, one is innocent until proven guilty, and having public officials announce guilt before all the facts are in is consistent with our constitutional values.

 

The facts will be whatever they will be. If they turn out negative to the marine, so be it.

 

There aren't really any circumstances in which you can choke a guy for 3 minutes. There isn't much grey area here. Even if the initial choke hold was justified you can't keep it going for 3 minutes. This wasn't even a Derek Chauvin situation where it was really just an improper hold and the guy had a heart attack. The marine was cutting off the guy's oxygen. I don't see a way a crime wasn't committed.

 

So they have identified the Marine as Daniel Penny. This article indicates he is still on active duty (perhaps on terminal leave given the hair length and facial hair), not a veteran as earlier reported. He was also an infantry squad leader, which means he was at least a MCMAP green belt. Also from the pictures and brief parts of the video I’ve seen (I’ll watch the whole thing later) it doesn’t look accurate to say he was “choking” the victim for 15 minutes. He was certainly restraining him along with at least one other bystander I could see, but the lack of tension in Penny’s arms for most of the time suggests he was only applying the choke when Neely was actively struggling and then relaxed when Neely would relax. That doesn’t mean, of course, that the restraining and occasional choking was not causal in his death. It almost certainly was. But the continuous choking narrative is probably false. And that makes sense. When I first heard that a Marine was choking a homeless man for 15 minutes until he died, my first thought was that he wasn’t doing it right: a proper blood choke would result in a man losing consciousness in seconds; survival for minutes would simply not happen. From what I’ve seen so far, his positioning of the hold was correct and expert; if he wasn’t choking Neely out, then it’s because he was deliberately trying not to. That wouldn’t eliminate Penny’s responsibility for the ultimate outcome, but it does speak to his intent of not wanting to kill the man. If he had, he could have applied the choke continuously at full force for less than a minute and then stood up. But I will watch the whole video to see if there’s any other indicators.