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'Could have been me': Eyewitnesses react to subway killing of Jordan Neely
By
Samantha Max
Published May 4, 2023
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Samantha Max / Gothamist
By
Samantha Max
Published May 4, 2023
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Two formerly homeless men riding the F train on Monday say they’re still haunted by the commotion they stumbled into when they walked onto the platform and found a Black man on the ground with a white man’s arms around his neck.
“Could have been me,” said James Kings, who has been homeless on and off since he was a child.
Kings, 48, and his friend Johnny Grima, 38, were about to pull up to the Broadway-Lafayette Street station when they noticed that their car had stopped for several minutes. Then a conductor told them to get off. When they walked onto the platform, they found a crowd of people watching as a man held Jordan Neely in a chokehold on the floor of an adjoining subway car.
Moments earlier, Neely, who was also homeless, had been yelling that he was tired and thirsty and that he was ready to die, according to a Facebook post by reporter Juan Alberto Vazquez, who witnessed the incident and posted a video of it. Another rider, who is known to authorities but has not yet been named, put Neely in a chokehold for about 15 minutes, Vazquez said.
By the time Kings and Grima saw Neely, they said he wasn’t moving.
“He was totally subdued,” Kings said. “It wasn’t like he was trying to fight back or anything. He was just limp.”
Eventually, the man who had Neely in a chokehold let go. Kings said he watched the man yank Neely’s arms and try to move him onto his side.
Grima said he walked up to Neely and poured a little water on his forehead. But he said the man who had Neely in a chokehold told him to stop.
Police arrived about six minutes after the train pulled into the station, according to Mayor Eric Adams. First responders took Neely to the hospital, where he died.
The city medical examiner’s office has ruled his death a homicide by compression to the neck. The Manhattan district attorney’s office said it is conducting a “rigorous” investigation but has not filed any criminal charges at this point.
The case has become a Rorschach test at a time when New Yorkers are increasingly divided about how to handle converging crises of homelessness, mental illness and fears of crime in the subway system. Some have criticized the mayor and the governor for not doing more to support people who need housing and mental health care, while others have defended the subway passenger for taking matters into his own hands.
Kings and Grima said Neely’s death highlights the city’s failure to take care of people who don’t have the money to support themselves.
Kings now lives in a shelter on the Lower East Side. But he said he used to ask for money on public transit, just like Neely did. A friend who saw a story about the case in the newspaper thought he was the one who had been killed.
“It made me feel terrible, man,” Kings, who was dressed in a red poncho to protect him from the rain, said on Thursday. “It made me feel like my government doesn’t have a place for me.”
Grima is staying in a supportive housing facility in the Bronx following his own stints on the streets. He said he’s already “seen a lot” in his life. He’s still coming to terms with what he saw at the Broadway-Lafayette Street station on Monday.
Several minutes after they walked onto the platform that day, Kings and Grima hopped on another train and continued their journey uptown. Grima said he regrets stepping away. He doesn’t really know how to do CPR. But he wishes he had at least tried.
“I should have taken command of the situation,” Grima said. “But that's something I have to live with.”
Tagged
Jordan Neely
manhattan
subway
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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