Daniel Penny acquitted in the death of Jordan Neely

[Derec]

No. Enlighten us.

Alvin Bragg was so gung-ho on prosecuting Penny because he is white.

 

[TomC]

A similar case on NYC subway led to charges being dismissed.

Charges dropped against NYC man accused in fatal subway stabbing

Can you guess the difference between the two cases?

No. Enlighten us.

One undeniable fact is that Penny is white and Williams is black.
Tom

 

[laughing dog]

Interestingly, it is

No. Enlighten us.

Alvin Bragg was so gung-ho on prosecuting Penny because he is white.

There go you again - dragging race into it. Do you have any evidence (not speculation) that Bragg's office did not present an aggressive case in front of Williams' grand jury?

 

[laughing dog]

A similar case on NYC subway led to charges being dismissed.

Charges dropped against NYC man accused in fatal subway stabbing

Can you guess the difference between the two cases?

No. Enlighten us.

One undeniable fact is that Penny is white and Williams is black.
Tom

True. Another one is that Penny's victim did not physically assault someone and Williams' victim did. And a grand jury indicted Penny but did not indict Williams. Yet, you focus on race.

Frankly, from the reports I read, Williams deserved a charge and a conviction.

 

[Derec]

There go you again - dragging race into it.

I am not dragging anything. Bragg did.

Do you have any evidence (not speculation) that Bragg's office did not present an aggressive case in front of Williams' grand jury?

I do. That case happened in Queens.

 

[Derec]

True. Another one is that Penny's victim did not physically assault someone and Williams' victim did.

According to the NBC article, that is unclear.
Also, Neely reportedly threw trash at people, in addition to threatening them.

And a grand jury indicted Penny but did not indict Williams.

We both know that a prosecutor can get the grand jury to indict a proverbial ham sandwich.

Yet, you focus on race.

I did not start that.
Take articles like this one:
Black Americans say white vigilantism played a role in Jordan Neely’s homicide
Race card was played from the beginning.

Frankly, from the reports I read, Williams deserved a charge and a conviction.

At least you are consistent.

 

[laughing dog]

There go you again - dragging race into it.

I am not dragging anything. Bragg did.

DA Bragg is not participating in this thread. You are, and you are injecting your speculation based on race (I think you refer to drawing conclusions as racist).

Do you have any evidence (not speculation) that Bragg's office did not present an aggressive case in front of Williams' grand jury?

I do. That case happened in Queens.

Let me get this straight, two different cases with in two different jurisdictions have different facts and outcomes. But you speculate it is race that is the explanation.

At least you are consistent.

 

[Derec]

DA Bragg is not participating in this thread. You are

And I am expressing an opinion about Bragg's motivation to go balls to the walls against Penny while being generally soft (Mohs scale 1) on crime.

So in other words, you have nothing but speculation based on racism on the part of Bragg? Wow.

I can't read minds. But I can form an opinion based on what cases he gets really invested in.

 

[laughing dog]

DA Bragg is not participating in this thread. You are

And I am expressing an opinion about Bragg's motivation to go balls to the walls against Penny while being generally soft (Mohs scale 1) on crime.

So in other words, you have nothing but speculation based on racism on the part of Bragg? Wow.

I can't read minds. But I can form an opinion based on what cases he gets really invested in.

Opinions can always be formed on the basis of anything. Mr. Bragg had nothing to do whatsoever with the Queens case so your comparison failed which makes your speculation more revealing about your state of mind than Mr. Bragg's motivation(s).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

A similar case on NYC subway led to charges being dismissed.

Charges dropped against NYC man accused in fatal subway stabbing

Can you guess the difference between the two cases?

A grand jury didn't indict Williams where as a grand jury did indict Neely.

Cases sound similar, though in the Williams case there is an accusation of actual battery. Certainly Neely using a submission hold verses a knife is a much more passive use of force. Had Neely not been negligent, in its use, there wouldn't have been a trial.

 

[southernhybrid]

I think that John Mcwhorter, a Black intellectual, who some of you may not like, made of good points about this case, so I'm sharing the piece he wrote this week, if anyone cares to be open to a different opinion, which I basically agree with, but didn't really want to get caught up in this thread.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/...e_code=1.iE4.nAfE.pD1sFX53U46t&smid=url-share

Since Monday, when a jury found Daniel Penny not guilty in the death of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway, the conversation has threatened to go off the rails.

Penny was the man who stepped up when Neely caused a commotion on the F train, shouting at passengers, “I’m fed up. I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die.” Penny put him in a chokehold and held him for about six minutes. Neely died from compression to his neck, according to the medical examiner.

It should have been a story about the horror of a mentally ill person abandoned by the city and left to fend for himself in subway tunnels or on street corners, or about how scary it can be for those around him to navigate the wreckage, or about how one 24-year-old Marine veteran tried to protect a group of strangers, taking action that ended in unintended tragedy.

But Penny is white and Neely, 30, was Black. So instead it became a story of race — and all the more so after the jury’s verdict — a variation of Daniel Pantaleo going free after choking Eric Garner in 2014. But that’s not what happened here, and I wish those describing Penny or his acquittal as racist might consider things from another vantage point.

The claim that Penny acted out of racism implies that if he had seen a white man scaring subway passengers in that way, he either would not have restrained the man at all or would have done so for a shorter time.

I am unaware of how we could know such a thing. Some will think of the white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd as he begged for his life. The common assumption was that Floyd’s race informed Chauvin’s behavior. How then should we think of the case of Tony Timpa, a white man who diedfour years earlier under very similar circumstances in Dallas?

To claim Penny was acquitted because he is white implies also that if he were Black, he would have been convicted and imprisoned.

I am unaware of how we could know this, either. Any lawyer defending a Black Marine veteran in this instance would be sure to invoke his service to his country and to his fellow passengers, and to warn jurors against making him another statistic in the annals of judicial bias. Given the circumstances and the setting, it seems likely to me that they would take that responsibility seriously.

Penny’s blond all-American looks seem to have invited a kind of punitive typecasting, and a very narrow view of what happened on that train: A white man killed a Black man. This reductive perspective discourages the empathic spirit that celebrated by the civil rights leaders who created our America.

I think it was right to arrest and try Penny, but I also have no problem with the verdict. He was tried before a jury who decided there wasn't enough evidence to find Penny guilty. And, btw, the comment section of the NYTImes a few days ago was full of people who ride the subway saying they were pleased with the verdict because the subway is much scarier these days than it was in the past because there are so many poor, mentally disturbed people, sometimes threatening them.

We as a society have failed our mentally ill and we can at least partially blame the Reagan administration for supporting the closure of so many hospitals for the extremely mentally ill. I almost worked at one in the 80s. The care was very good and I was amazed by the courage of the nurses who chose to work on what was known as the ward for the criminally insane. These folks belong in a hospital where they can receive their meds, get adequate food and decent care, not in a prison or dead, as so many of them end up. Enough said...

 

[TSwizzle]

We as a society have failed our mentally ill and we can at least partially blame the Reagan administration for supporting the closure of so many hospitals for the extremely mentally ill.

Reagan has been dead for 20 years and out of office for almost 35 years!!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

We as a society have failed our mentally ill and we can at least partially blame the Reagan administration for supporting the closure of so many hospitals for the extremely mentally ill.

Reagan has been dead for 20 years and out of office for almost 35 years!!

Yup... that is called a "legacy".

 

[TomC]

We as a society have failed our mentally ill and we can at least partially blame the Reagan administration for supporting the closure of so many hospitals for the extremely mentally ill.

Reagan has been dead for 20 years and out of office for almost 35 years!!

Nevertheless, closing the mental hospitals and dumping the patients was a police of his party and administration.
Tom

 

[robnisch]

We as a society have failed our mentally ill and we can at least partially blame the Reagan administration for supporting the closure of so many hospitals for the extremely mentally ill.

Reagan has been dead for 20 years and out of office for almost 35 years!!

Yup... that is called a "legacy".

And a lot of dumbasses still believe in the "trickle down theory".

 

[TomC]

Getting back to the point Sohy, McWhorter and a few other people have made...

Our society and government are doing an incredibly bad job of dealing with mental health issues and the drugs often involved.

That's what killed Neely, not an untrained bystander trying to help the rest of the folks.
Tom

 

[TSwizzle]

We as a society have failed our mentally ill and we can at least partially blame the Reagan administration for supporting the closure of so many hospitals for the extremely mentally ill.

Reagan has been dead for 20 years and out of office for almost 35 years!!

Yup... that is called a "legacy".

So it can't be fixed?

 

[TomC]

We as a society have failed our mentally ill and we can at least partially blame the Reagan administration for supporting the closure of so many hospitals for the extremely mentally ill.

Reagan has been dead for 20 years and out of office for almost 35 years!!

Yup... that is called a "legacy".

So it can't be fixed?

Sure it can.

Convince the conservatives and GOP to do so.
But you can't even get them to fund border security.
Tom

 

[Derec]

Nevertheless, closing the mental hospitals and dumping the patients was a police of his party and administration.
Tom

Placing the blame on one man is ridiculous. The legislation in question (repeal of MHSA?) was passed by Congress, and Democrats had a majority in the House.

Besides, that was over four decades ago. Many presidents and congresses came and went in that time.

 

[southernhybrid]

We as a society have failed our mentally ill and we can at least partially blame the Reagan administration for supporting the closure of so many hospitals for the extremely mentally ill.

Reagan has been dead for 20 years and out of office for almost 35 years!!

Yes, but that is when money for the mentally ill was cut way back and large mental hospitals starting closing during the Regan administration with the support of some of the Republicans in Congress, which is why I said he is partly to blame.Perhaps they didn't intend to do the damage that was done, since they probably lacked any real understanding of what it is like to suffer from a severe brain illness. We can blame those who never did anything else to improve things since then as well. It's also added to the homeless crisis.

I also remember that in NC, where I was living during that time, mental hospitals were going to be mostly replaced by public health nurses that specialized in psychiatry. The idea was to visit and check on the mentally ill, do assessments and make sure they were taking their meds. Obviously, that didn't work out. Instead, we now have cities full of mentally ill folks, who are often homeless with nobody to help them. Most of these folks are harmless, but there are always a small percentage who would be labeled as "criminally insane", and even if they aren't dangerous, they should be cared for properly, instead of living on the street with little or no help at all.

I also wonder why Neely's family pretty much abandoned him, but now they are outraged over what the jury's verdict. If I had a son who was that sick, I'd do my best to get him help and offer him food, and financial help at the very least. I don't know more than what I've read but it seems like Neely's family failed him as well.



https://obrag.org/2023/04/how-reaga...-institutions-led-to-the-homelessness-crisis/

As a psychologist who began practicing nearly 40 years ago, I’ve seen a significant shift in the care of the mentally ill since the mid-1980s — and it hasn’t been for the better.

After the deinstitutionalization movement began in California in the 1960s, many state mental health hospitals closed, forcing many folks who needed a lot of care onto the streets.

Without those facilities, many mentally ill people ended up in jails and prisons which are not set up to provide safe, compassionate care for brain illnesses. But in 1981, when President d Reagan deinstitutionalized the mentally ill and emptied the psychiatric hospitals into so-called “community” clinics, the problem got worse.

Most of those who were deinstitutionalized from the nation’s public psychiatric hospitals were severely mentally ill. Between 50 percent and 60 percent were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The fact that many of these people struggled with various forms of brain dysfunction was not recognized back then. With so many advances in brain science, experts now know that we need to be able to coordinate care in residential facilities, especially if we are housing people at $4,000 per day in a local medical hospital.

People with severe mental illness need to be supported every step of the way. They need to be housed with compassion and supplied with medications, state of the art brain health therapies, nutritious food that supports brain health and extracurricular activities that give them a chance to live meaningful lives. They need to receive quality care with programs like art and music therapy, equestrian therapy, job training and volunteer opportunities to become actively engaged members of society.