Manhattan prosecutors are considering whether to file charges in connection with the death of a 30-year-old man who was held in a chokehold inside a New York City subway car Monday.
(Bloomberg) — Manhattan prosecutors are considering whether to file charges in connection with the death of a 30-year-old man who was held in a chokehold inside a New York City subway car Monday.
Jordan Neely, who witnesses say was suffering a mental health episode, died after he was restrained by another passenger. Late Wednesday, the medical examiner’s office ruled the death a homicide due to “compression of neck (chokehold).”
Protesters have demonstrated at the Broadway-Lafayette stop in Manhattan, where the incident occurred, demanding the unnamed bystander be arrested and charged. Meanwhile, Neely’s death has renewed focus on how the city manages services for people experiencing homelessness and mental illness.
Neely, who was unhoused and suffering from mental illness, was a familiar sight in the city’s subways because he had often performed as a Michael Jackson impersonator.
“The National Action Network demands the District Attorney and police investigate this horrific incident as a potential case of manslaughter – if not murder,” civil rights activist Al Sharpton said in a statement. “Thirty years ago, I fought the Bernard Goetz case and we cannot end up back to a place where vigilantism is tolerable. It wasn’t acceptable then and it cannot be acceptable now.”
Others have criticized Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul for not strongly condemning Neely’s death.
“Any loss of life is tragic,” Adams said in a statement Monday. “There’s a lot we don’t know about what happened here, so I’m going to refrain from commenting further. However, we do know that there were serious mental health issues in play here, which is why our administration has made record investments in providing care to those who need it and getting people off the streets and the subways, and out of dangerous situations.”
Said Hochul: “One element we have not talked about is the billion dollars investment we have in mental health services so we don’t have people who are homeless in our subways, many of them in the throes of mental health episodes and that’s what I believe were some of the factors involved here. There’s consequences for behavior.”
On Thursday, Hochul told reporters that Neely’s “family deserves justice” and called the chokehold an “extreme response,” according to Politico. She added that she was pleased that the incident was being investigated, the site reported.
Adams’s comments drew a rebuke from US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “This honestly feels like a new low: not being able to clearly condemn a public murder because the victim was of a social status some would deem “too low” to care about,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
In an interview on CNN on Wednesday, Adams again refrained from commenting further on whether the bystander who placed Neely in the chokehold should have intervened.
“We have so many cases where passengers assist other riders. And we don’t know exactly what happened here,” Adams said during the interview. “And so we cannot just blatantly say what a passenger should or should not do in a situation like that, and we should allow the investigation to take its course.”
According to reports and interviews with an eyewitness who filmed part of the incident, Neely was riding in a northbound F train in Manhattan Monday afternoon, yelling that he was hungry and thirsty and did not care if he ended up in jail. A bystander subdued Neely and placed him in a chokehold. The man, a 24-year-old former Marine, was released by police after the incident, without charges.
“This is a solemn and serious matter that ended in the tragic loss of Jordan Neely’s life,” Doug Cohen, a spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, said in a statement.
“As part of our rigorous ongoing investigation, we will review the Medical Examiner’s report, assess all available video and photo footage, identify and interview as many witnesses as possible, and obtain additional medical records. This investigation is being handled by senior, experienced prosecutors and we will provide an update when there is additional public information to share,” he said.
Bragg’s office encouraged anyone who witnessed or has information about the incident to call 212-335-9040.
(Updates with additional Hochul comments Thursday.)
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