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.
IT WILL HAPPEN HERE
The travesty on the New York subway will happen here. I read all the Marin cop logs publicly available every week. And, week after week, there are reports of an obviously mentally disturbed person confronting people in one way or another.
There’s a guy in Sausalito who walks around brandishing a knife, scaring the bejeebers out of passers by. There’s another guy who jumps out of the bushes at people trying to use a bank’s ATM, pointing a “finger gun” at them. A woman in Mill Valley sits on a bench weeping. She yells at people and defecates in the bushes. Police respond, but there’s not much they can do in today’s world. So, they put a timer on them and then tell them to “move along.”
We need to fix this.
WHO IS HU?
Patient zero in the world COVID-19 pandemic has been identified. It is Ben Hu.
And who is Hu?
He is none other than the Chinese scientist who oversaw ‘Gain Of Function’ research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
This explains a lot about why the Biden Administration has been slow to investigate the origins of COVID. It didn’t come from a wet market. It came from attempts to weaponize a virus. Shame on us.
AND THE PEOPLE SAY
I’ve seen a lot of dumb letters to the editor in my time. None as stupid as the one in the daily newspaper last week that said the Catholic Church in San Rafael should have kept its statue of St. Junipero Serra in a more hidden place on church grounds so protesters would be less tempted to tear it down.
Brilliant.
By that thinking, women who wear “provocative” clothing deserve what they get.
ICYMI
– The Marin County Probation Department conducted another one of its regular unannounced checks on DUI probationers. Twenty-four convicted drunk or drugged drivers out on probation were found to be at it again. Apparently second chances are not enough for some people, sad to say. Good work Marin County Probation Department.
– Marin congressional representative Jared Huffman co-signed a strong letter to Joe Biden’s EPA urging restraint when applying air quality rules to prescribed burns. Huffman doesn’t want the air-quality rules to “inadvertently limit land managers from deploying prescribed fires, which help California communities avoid the larger catastrophic wildfires.”
– A black bear was spotted in Sleepy Hollow last Wednesday (June 14). Pretty darn cool.
ONE MORE THING
Thanks for reading. Until next week, avoid sore heads, laugh a little and always question authority.
(“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.)
Leave a Reply