The New York Subway Incident

A few days ago, an incident occurred on the New York City subways. For those who are not familiar, a black male was somehow harassing subway passengers although the details are not entirely clear.

This is not uncommon in New York City. It occurred with considerable regularity when I was growing up there, and I remember it well. It stopped for the most part during the periods when Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg served as mayor. It then gradually returned and is now a frequent occurrence.

In any event, a white former Marine intervened when these subway passengers somehow felt threatened. He placed the black male in a chokehold for a couple of minutes, apparently assisted by one or two others; and the black male died. Since then, protests have ensued.

But then more information became available.

The fellow who died— Jordan Neely– had been arrested 42 times over the last decade. He had assaulted an elderly female at a subway station breaking her nose and her orbit. He punched a 64 year-old male during another incident at a subway station. He also had kidnapped a 7 year old.

This was turned into a racial incident by BLM-style protesters who targeted at least one subway station and jumped down on the tracks, shutting down service on that particular line.

This incident was entirely preventable. The proof of that statement is the near-20 year period during which these incidents hardly ever occurred in the New York subways.

The proper use of law enforcement and the criminal justice system is key. It is critical to maintain public order in public spaces. Here in Greensboro, we have similar problems on a smaller scale in the downtown area.

But it is also important to keep those who are severely impaired due to mental illness off the streets.

The fact that our society has lacked seriousness about law enforcement, criminal justice and the handling of the impaired mentally ill is a set-up for these types of incidents. It is all SO unnecessary.