Sherman R. Frederick/Properly Subversive
The death of mentally ill homeless man Jordan Neely on a subway car in New York at the hands of former Marine veteran Daniel Penny is, quite possibly, the morality play of our time.
Neely, who has a history of violence, threatened passengers with death on May 21. Penny approached Neely from behind and wrestled him to the ground. With the help of two others, he put Neely in a headlock from which Neely choked to death.
Is Penny a hero? He says he’s not. He said he only did what a good Marine is taught to do, which the Marine website says is to have “courage to overcome fear and to do what is right.”
The website goes on to say that a good Marine “adheres to a higher standard of personal conduct and to make tough decisions under stress and pressure.”
I can’t think of a harder decision than the one made by Penny that night.
I hope the morality play comes to an end with someone in authority apologizing to Jordan Neely’s family for allowing him to wander New York streets without the help he needed and a salute to Daniel Penny, who was put in an impossible situation as a result of it.
That would be justice to me.
(“Properly Subversive” is a commentary written by Sherman R. Frederick for Marinscope Community Newspapers, the “mother ship” of the Novato Advance, San Rafael News-Pointer, Mill Valley Herald, Ross Valley Reporter, Twin City Times and the Sausalito Marin Scope. Mr. Frederick is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of Battle Born Media, a news organization dedicated to the preservation of community newspapers. You can reach him by email at shermfrederick@gmail.com.)
i was attacked by HL in subway -cops di NOTHING…so is it ok to just sit and let it happen? i am sure that the intention was not to kill, but to restrain…sorry for both!
You couldn’t have say it any better, how much abuse are we supposed to take, and just sit around until we get hurt, we’ll know it was a tragedy , but then again, any of those those people could have been killed for no reason, it happens all the time. I really hope he gets out of this and I’m sorry for the other person family
When I lived in NYC I rode the subway almost every day. It’s very easy for outsiders to cry “racism” where racism isn’t even the case here regarding Jordan Neely. Neely had 44 arrests while Penny had none and was a former Marine. The “excuse” for Neely’s mental illness was because he witnessed his mother’s death when he was a young child. That is very sad; HOWEVER, what did his other family members do to help him? Did they take him to therapy? (Probably not.) If the Neely family tries to sue NYC I would hope that the attorneys representing Penny,Raiser & Kenniff, brings up that last point that I made. There are too many deinstitutionalized patients walking around the streets of Manhattan. Something must be done about that.