New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday said Neely’s family “deserves justice” and that there have to be consequences after his death.
“I do want to acknowledge how horrific it was to view a video of Jordan Neely being killed for being a passenger on the subway trains,” Hochul said at a news conference.
My gosh, did the New York Governor really say something so stupid? He was not killed for being a passenger on the train, he was killed because he was threatening everyone else on the train.
Neely did not deserve to die, but let's not pretend he was just an innocent man killed for no reason. Subway trains are tight, enclosed spaces. I'm sure that everyone on that train was scared out of their minds being trapped with this guy. When he screamed "I don't care if I get a life sentence" it is not unreasonable to think that he is willing, if not intending, to commit violence against other passengers.
One of the other passengers on the train is quoted as saying "None of us who were there thought he was in danger of dying, we just thought he passed out or ran out of air. That's understandable, but it also needs to be taken into account that a former Marine had to have known the risks of putting Neely into that particular hold, and holding him there for so long. Is there really no other hold he could have used to subdue Neely? I'm not saying he wanted to kill Neely, but it seems likely that he knew what he was doing could kill Neely, and still chose to do it anyway. It was obviously a high-pressure situation, and I can understand that when threatened with violence, and seeing others threatened with violence, this guy just snapped. We'll see how sympathetic a jury he can get in NYC.