A Catholic View of the Jordan Neely Tragedy

Every person is a child of God

The recent homicide of Jordan Neely is a tragedy needing serious investigation. It does not need politicization.

The story centers around a thirty-year-old man in severe distress on the F-line of the New York City subway system. He was acting as what a videographer described to the New York Post unhinged seeking food and drink and so desperate he did not care if he went to jail. The New York Intelligencer reported that Neely threw garbage at fellow passengers. There was no indication at this time that he attempted to rob anyone.

According to published reports, a former marine tried to restrain him using a chokehold. The medical examiner indicated he died due to the neck compression. A chokehold compresses the carotid artery cutting off blood and, therefore, oxygen to the brain which causes the restrained to pass out. Releasing the chokehold opens up the artery and the person generally recovers.

Published reports indicate he was in the chokehold for fifteen minutes. Chokeholds, although once commonly deployed in various police departments are now illegal in most if not all.

When I was in San Diego in the 1970s and 1980s, I witnessed, from a city bus, a team of San Diego Police Officers administering a chokehold to a suspect on a street corner. One officer had his arm around the man’s neck, the other was watching casually while chewing gum. Finally, the restrained just passed out and collapsed to the ground when the officer released the restraint.

Ignore the flat characterization

Often in these cases, many journalistic reports focus on a person’s criminal offender record and detail his history of arrests and convictions. These actually do not give a full understanding of the person. However, consumers of news can often be led to dismiss the deceased simply as a convict. Some reports dismiss those who die in similar circumstances as “thugs”. Any writer would tell you that this is a flat caricature—a failure in writing. No one can be summed up in a four-letter pejorative much less one that is so undefined.  

As Catholics, we have a call to look beyond the labels and look at everyone as a child of God. This means we need to dig deeper than a rap sheet.

According to published reports, including in the New York Post, Jordan Neely loved to imitate Michael Jackson and often did it on the subway. However, at 14, his stepfather brutally murdered his mother, dismembered her and stuffed her body into a suitcase. The Post indicates he was working at a law firm at the time. He left the gruesome suitcase on the shoulder of a highway. This led Jordan to suffer a mental breakdown. He ended up with PTSD, schizophrenia and depression and ultimately he landed into homelessness on the streets.

His aunt says Jordan fell through the cracks and did not receive the help he obviously needed according to the New York Post.

This now thirty-year-old displayed signs of severe mental distress as he begged for help from other riders of the F train in the New York Transit System. The F train runs from the borough of Jamaica to Coney Island in Brooklyn. The incident happened under the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Yet, because witnesses described him as unhinged, they perceived him as a threat and not what he truly was a man in a severe mental health emergency. His claim that jail did not scare him showed how desperate he was.

How should this situation have been handled?

First, if chokeholds are illegal in police departments, they are illegal to everyone. Never put a person into a chokehold, ever. Even if you are trained. Training is provided under the most optimal situations, putting someone in a chokehold on a subway train is not the optimal situation. Any kind of pressure to the neck is extremely dangerous. Never, never do anything that involves the neck.

In fact, even if someone acts aggressively towards you, never touch them ever. There are other tactics you can use to de-escalate the situation and in this case, until the train reaches the next station.

One of the most powerful tactics is to speak to the person in a low, calm, empathetic voice. That can de-escalate the person immediately and from a safe distance. This includes those who are not directly involved in the interaction but are aware some intervention needs to be done.

If you are not qualified or do not know what to do, step back from the situation and do nothing except call 9-1-1.

As soon as the train goes to the next station yell out for medical help. As described, this situation was a medical emergency.

Remember, there is no indication that Jordan had any kind of weapon on him. Published reports do not indicate that he was trying to rob anyone. He was begging for food and drink and acting “unhinged” including throwing garbage.

This whole incident needs to be investigated completely and should not be politicized. This means government officials including those in elected office on the federal, state and city levels need to demand an investigation into how Jordan Neely fell through the cracks and why. Then a survey needs to happen to investigate how many more are in a similar situation.

There is something else here that can be addressed. Pope Benedict XVI warned that socialism does not work because it becomes an uncaring bureaucracy. Jordan Neely’s death was a terrible tragedy but part of the reason why he fell through the cracks is because he became the victim of an uncaring bureaucracy. He was begging for help and did not receive it.

Even if you are a private citizen, and you face a similar situation be prepared for what to do. As a priest, I always feel that I do not have the right to ignore someone who may approach me. If they engage me, I always respond, even if I am not wearing the priest habit called clerics. I never ignore a person who engages me and I never respond in violence.

We all have a responsibility to those who are most in need of help when we can deliver it. Sometimes a kind word can make all the difference. At other times, reacting in a way that sees the human need behind the behavior may alter someone’s life.

As Catholics, we have that duty.

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