The NYPD and the media we used to slam as tabloid got out front to prevent another explosion of Black Lives Matter protests . A thirty year old mentally ill Black man named Jordan Neely had been strangled by a white guy - a 24 y.o. ex-marine, in a way very similar to the death of George Floyd.
Matt Shulam tells the story of the press failure in the Huff Post.
By the time independent reporters the press started poking holes in the police version of the choke-hold death it was nearly too late. To the widespread derision of MAGAs online putative Presidential candidate Florida Governor Ron De Santis was calling to lionize the young white ex-marine who choked Jordan Neely in plain view on the F train in lower Manhattan. As Shulam put it:
"According to Juan Alberto Vázquez, a freelance journalist who took the only published video of Penny putting Neely in a chokehold, Neely was “aggressive” but not specifically threatening or getting physical with anyone on the train.
According to Juan Alberto Vázquez, a freelance journalist who took the only published video of Penny putting Neely in a chokehold, Neely was “aggressive” but not specifically threatening or getting physical with anyone on the train.t respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment, posted a video of Neely’s final moments on his Facebook page, along with a quote purportedly from Neely written in Spanish: “I don’t have food, I don’t have anything to drink, I’m fed up....I don’t care if I go to jail and they give me life in prison.” Neely didn’t seem to want to attack anyone, Vázquez wrote.
“He started screaming all these things, took off his jacket, a black jacket that he had, and threw it on the ground,” Vázquez told the New York Post for a story published May 2, the day after Neely’s death. He also told The New York Times that day that Neely had said, “I’m ready to die.”
As a subway rider I understand that an angry decompensating young men is frightening. But converting such a killing into a cause for celebration of vigilante justice is appalling.
- GWC
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