OPINION:
No one had the right to choke Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless and mentally ill Black man, to death (“Daniel Penny, ex-Marine, acquitted in subway chokehold death of homeless man Jordan Neely,” web, Dec. 9).
Neely was a broken, battered and bruised member of hurting humanity, and he should never have been placed in a chokehold. Yet he was, by 24-year-old White ex-Marine Daniel Penny and two others, in May 2023.
That it happened during Mental Health Awareness Month adds insult to deadly injury.
Perry should be retried, and everyone else involved in Neely’s killing must be charged, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Jordan Neely, a well-known Michael Jackson impersonator, was unarmed and shouting that he was hungry and ready to die on a train. Does this justify a six-minute chokehold?
Neely needed mental health help, not killing. Killing the mentally ill is not the answer to New York City’s problems. All the mental health facilities in New York City and New York state that were unfairly defunded and shuttered by political power brokers must be refunded and reopened.
Black lives matter, and so does mental health.
ARTHUR L. MACKEY JR.
Roosevelt, New York
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