southernhybrid
Contributor
I never said he was a hero, but I think he thought he was being protective of the passengers, but also didn't do the right thing by maintaining the choke hold for so long. All I'm saying is that a jury found him innocent of the crimes he was charged with and I can accept that.If Penny had tried to de-escalate the situation, I’d have some sympathy for his situation. I didn’t hear and see all the evidence, so I assume the jury did their diligence.I think that is pretty much the point. HIs biological family failed him. His father never tried to help him, which is why the person who made the quote said that his father was responsible for his death. We certainly don't know if a better father could have kept him from all of the awful problems he faced, but a better father could have cared for him, instead of having him go to foster care and a better father could have at least offered him food, some emotional support etc. That is why some of us aren't convinced that Penny was the real problem, as he was simply trying to protect the riders on the subway and sure he should have released the chokehold sooner, but since none of us were in the courtroom for the trial, none of us really know how we would have perceived the evidence presented by the witnesses or the defense attorney, or what verdict we would have reached. All it takes is a reasonable doubt to declare someone innocent, right? I'm sure it was a hard decision for the jury to reach a verdict.Neely’s father was the functional equivalent of a sperm donor who is now asking for compensation for stolen property. In no proper sense of the word is he “family”. He deserves nothing.https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/j...ignore-americas-fatherhood-crisis/ar-AA1vBCqi
Okay, I know the guy quoted in the article is a minister and I know the interview was done on one of the Fox News stations, hopefully, just one of the local stations that is very different from the political one, but the guy makes a lot of good points. Neely's father was never there for him, not even when he was a kid, who witnessed his mother's murder.
Then I recently learned that Jordan’s father, Andre Zachary, filed a lawsuit against Daniel Penny that "demands judgment awarding damages in a sum which exceeds the jurisdictional limits of all lower Courts which would otherwise have jurisdiction."
Now, I was incensed. Where the heck was Zachary all these years? What did he do for his son who had to witness an abusive relationship? Where was he when his son was shipped off to the foster care system? Where was he all those years his son was in the system — did he visit even once? Where was he when his son got out? Where the heck was he when his son was dealing with his demons all by himself and drifting in and out of homelessness?
And now he shows up when his son is cold and buried? To be clear, he didn’t show up for Jordan. He showed up for himself. Andre Zachary was never a father in any meaningful way and does not deserve that precious title.
This angers me in ways that most people wouldn’t understand. I minister and work on the South Side of Chicago and I understand more than most how detrimental the absentee father has been to our community. I work with them every day. I counsel them on how God has blessed them with children and how it is their sacred responsibility to be there and raise the child. I provide these young men with pathways to opportunities. I’ve seen them leave paths of destruction to become forklift operators and construction workers. Some have even returned to college while working a full-time job.
These men are good men. They were lost but the possibility of redemption was within them and they simply needed a nudge in the right direction.
They are nothing like the lost soul that Andre Zachary still is. While I would never turn my back fully on any man, that man has never shown one ounce of fatherhood. I know there are those who will try to use race to excuse him because he is Black. But that is immoral. Almost every absentee father I deal with is Black. If I allowed that to be an excuse, then where would we be as a society?
That is why I stand here and hold Andre Zachary fully accountable for his actions. He played a role in his son’s death. That is what he needs to acknowledge if he wants to make it right with a far higher power than money: God. If he chooses this unholy pursuit of money, then we must make an example out of him.
I worked with a lot of young women who had children, but the children's father was absent in many cases. One, who I was very close to, had twin boys and by the time they were 18, one had committed a crime. The mom was a dear person who probably did a good job of raising her boys, but why wasn't the father helping out? I agree with the quote, regardless if I don't agree with the religious aspects of it. I agree that a father plays an important part in raising a child, especially a child who has experienced trauma. But, Neely's father did absolutely nothing for him, he let him struggle with drugs and homelessness, after living in foster care. Foster care, is often a horrible experience for a kid. Neely's father could have and should have done more to help his son. Now, he has the nerve to ask for financial compensation due to his son's death.
Mr Neely had no real family. He had kin. He was an adult. What realistically could his kin have done?
But Penny is no hero in my view.
I think both sides have gotten carried away. One side screams that Penny is a racist killer and the other side praises what he did as if he was a hero. I just think he and the other passengers perceived Neely as a threat and Penny went into action, like a Marine might do in combat, but I agree that he used the wrong type of chokehold, based on some things I've read about the trial earlier today.
It's true that it's almost impossible these days to have a severely mentally ill person committed to a mental hospital. Sadly, a good percentage of them end up in prison. I think as a nation we really fucked. up by doing that. Neely might be alive, comfortable, fed, housed and cared for, if we still had institutionalized mental health care like we did many decades ago. Yes. There were some bad ones, but now we have bad nursing homes, were a lot of severely mentally ill people live. I know because I was the nurse for quite a few when I worked in assisted living. I only remember one being violent. She tried to strangle another resident, but luckily it was in front of the staff and she was easily subdued. And, btw, if Neely had escaped that choke hold, he would have ended up in prison for threatening the passengers. There was no way out for the poor man.
Slightly off topic. I read a book called, "Nobody cares about Crazy People" by Ron Powers. It included the history of how the mentally ill are treated. It was an excellent book with a heartbreaking story, written by a man who had a son who had schizophrenia.
