Man dies on N.Y. subway after rider puts him in minutes-long chokehold
Listen 7 min Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share
A 30-year-old man was killed on a New York subway train this week when a fellow rider confronted the man, who was screaming and behaving erratically, and placed him in a chokehold for several minutes, according to a witness’s account and video of the fatal encounter. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The incident unfolded before the northbound F train stopped at the Broadway-Lafayette subway station in Manhattan on Monday afternoon. Video taken by freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vazquez shows a 30-year-old Black man flailing his arms, kicking his legs and struggling to free himself as a White passenger, 24, held him in a chokehold on the floor of the train. Two other passengers are shown helping to restrain the 30-year-old during the chokehold. The rider releases the hold and helps place the man, who appears unconscious, on his side, video shows.
While the video shows the 30-year-old in the chokehold for roughly three minutes, Vazquez wrote on Facebook that men were in that position “for about 15 minutes while other passengers and the train operator called the police.” Authorities have not released details on how long the man was in the chokehold.
Advertisement
Police say witnesses described the 30-year-old, who has not been publicly identified by authorities, as acting in a “hostile and erratic manner.” The man was shouting on the F train that he was hungry and thirsty, Vazquez said, but did not attack anyone before he was placed in a chokehold.
“I don’t have food, I don’t have a drink, I’m fed up,” the man screamed, according to Vazquez. “I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die.”
The 30-year-old man was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He has been identified by local media as Jordan Neely, who had performed on the subway as a Michael Jackson impersonator. A New York Police Department spokesman told The Washington Post that authorities will identify the 30-year-old man “pending family notification.”
Advertisement
The 24-year-old man, who has not been publicly identified, was taken in for questioning but released without charges, according to police. The 24-year-old is a Marine Corps veteran, according to the New York Daily News.
Police had not made arrests in the case or declared the 30-year-old man’s death a homicide as of Wednesday morning.
“The medical examiner will determine the cause of death, and the investigation is ongoing,” an NYPD spokesman told The Washington Post.
Tim Minton, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, directed all questions about the case to the NYPD. He told The Post that no transit employees were in the car at the time of the chokehold.
“There were some who responded after the fact,” Minton said.
The fatal encounter captured on video has been met with online backlash from residents and public officials, including New York state Sen. Julia Salazar (D).
Advertisement
“A man named Jordan Neely was choked to death in public on the subway this week while people watched and even cheered. This is horrific,” Salazar tweeted Wednesday. “The constant demonization of poor people and people in mental health crisis in our city allows for this barbarism. It is making our city sick.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, also denounced the killing and called on authorities to pursue manslaughter or murder charges.
“Thirty years ago, I fought the Bernard Goetz case and we cannot end up back to a place where vigilantism is tolerable,” Sharpton said in a statement. “It wasn’t acceptable then and it cannot be acceptable now.”
The fatal chokehold on the subway comes nearly nine years after Eric Garner died after being placed in a chokehold by a New York police officer during an arrest in which the Black man said, “I can’t breathe.” His death sparked new questions about the use of force by law enforcement. Those questions surrounding use of force have continued in the years since George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, was killed in May 2020 when a police officer knelt on his neck for almost 10 minutes in another fatal encounter captured on video.
Advertisement
The rate of violence in New York has come under fire from House Republicans in recent weeks after the indictment of former president Donald Trump in Manhattan. While figures for major crimes did rise in New York last year from 2021, the current level of crime in the city is more comparable to a decade ago, when New York was celebrated as the country’s safest big city, according to a fact check by the Associated Press.
Subway safety has been a focus of New York Mayor Eric Adams (D), who launched an initiative with Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in October to put 1,200 additional overtime officers at stations during peak hours. Between Jan. 1 and April 23, reported crime in the subway system has fallen 6.6 percent from the same period in 2022, Minton told The Post. The subway crime data kept by the NYPD is for offenses such as homicide, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary and grand larceny.
“Two things are happening,” Minton said. “Crime is down and people are saying they feel safer. And arrests are way up, because when they do things, they get caught.”
Advertisement
Adams earlier this week celebrated the decline of homeless encampments throughout the transit system.
“You don’t see encampments any more ... on our subway system,” Adams said at the Wall Street Journal’s the Future of Everything Festival on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning.
Shortly after 2 p.m. Monday, the 30-year-old man identified as Neely entered the F train at the Second Avenue station and began shouting, Vazquez recalled. The passenger said the 30-year-old man then “removed his jacket and aggressively whipped it to the floor” of the train. As the man started shouting, much of the subway car cleared out, Vazquez said.
That’s when a White man intervened and grabbed the Black man “by the neck and laid him on the floor as he tied him with his legs,” Vazquez wrote. The video, which captures part of the encounter, shows the 30-year-old man’s eyes are barely open as he’s struggling to break free from the chokehold. At one point, the 24-year-old man applying the hold briefly looks at the camera as he’s being filmed and maintains his hold on the other man.
Advertisement
An MTA announcement is heard around 90 seconds into the video: “Police, police, respond!”
As the chokehold continues, three women are shown looking down next to the 30-year-old, video shows. When the White man finally releases the chokehold, another passenger is heard off-camera complimenting the 24-year-old on his technique.
“You’ve got a hell of a chokehold, man,” the passenger says to the 24-year-old, according to video. That same passenger is heard off-camera claiming that the 30-year-old “ain’t gonna die.”
The 24-year-old then collects his hat and stays in the car to help place the 30-year-old man on his side, and others assist him, video shows. When the train stopped at the Broadway-Lafayette Street/Bleeker Street station, the conductor called 911. Police said they responded at the Broadway and East Houston Street station around 2:30 p.m.
Advertisement
Police told WABC in New York that the 30-year-old was a repeat offender on the subway who had 44 previous arrests for assault, disorderly conduct and fare evasion. Authorities did not confirm the man’s previous record to The Post.
The man identified as Neely by local media last lived in the Bronx, according to public records. A YouTube video posted in February 2022 shows clips of the man performing as Michael Jackson on the subway. The caption in the video claims that Neely was “missing in New York” as of last year.
“He will come back,” the YouTube user wrote. “I believe that he will rise again and come back to us.”
More than a year later, the man was killed on the subway.
Paulina Villegas contributed to this report.
GiftOutline Gift Article
Source: The Washington Post
