America Is Obsessed With Vigilantism – By Paul Blest (VICE) / May 10, 2023
The mainstream response to the killing of Jordan Neely has been shockingly callous, and it’s part of a growing and disturbing strain of vigilantism.
When New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ responded to the killing of Jordan Neely last week, he all but said Neely’s mental illness was responsible for his own death.
Neely, a 30-year-old unhoused street performer, died on May 1 after being choked out for 15 minutes by a former Marine named Daniel Penny. Video of the attack, posted on Facebook by freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vazquez, showed two other men assisting Penny as he choked Neely, and Neely’s limp body on the ground after Penny released him. Neely was later declared dead at a Manhattan hospital, and the city medical examiner said Neely died as a result of the chokehold, ruling his death a homicide.
Adams responded to the horrific video by saying that while “any loss of life is tragic,” there were “serious mental health issues in play here”—referring to Neely, not the man who choked him to death. Following Neely’s death, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander tweeted that New York “must not become a city where a mentally ill human being can be choked to death by a vigilante without consequence.”
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