I think that the NYT opinion by John McWhorter presents a balanced perspective. The incident has been described as a political Rorschach test: people will see whatever they want to see in it. I...
The incident has been described as a political Rorschach test: people will see whatever they want to see in it. I find it interesting that the CurrentAffairs writer Lily Sánchez has glossed over or omitted details that would have painted Jordan Neely as an aggressor.
But I think it is disingenuous to describe Jordan Neely as only a hungry, harmless panhandler experiencing a mental health episode. His past record shows a trend of worsening violence: he had tried to push someone into the subway tracks (attempted murder), had beaten up an old woman, assaulted others, attempted to kidnap a 7-year old girl, and more. On that train, multiple 911 calls were made about threats and weapons, which is contrary to the narrative that passengers were either passive or didn't notice the fight. Sánchez wrote, "Neely had reportedly been asking for food and water and saying he was 'ready to die,'" but omitted the full context: that Neely proclaimed that he was ready to go to jail, get life in prison, and was ready to die, which is an utmost extreme threat. A mental health crisis does not render him harmless.
It is very conceivable and possible that Neely had it in him to stab or shoot someone. The sheer terror of feeling that someone is ready to kill you is not something that one can just shrug off with compassion. I say that as someone whom a teenager pretended to shoot point blank with a realistic fake gun. He and his friend laughed, but I still struggle with the memory of feeling icy cold and hot all in a flash, my heart racing yet stopping too, of existing and being ready to not exist.
I think McWhorter has the most reasonable take on it: the real tragedy was systemic and has been in the making over the years. And the onus of naming it and confronting it fell upon imperfect regular people.
I agree overall that this tragedy had, as its root cause, systemic issues that normal citizens should never have been tasked to address. That being said, I don't actually think Jordan Neely's...
I agree overall that this tragedy had, as its root cause, systemic issues that normal citizens should never have been tasked to address. That being said, I don't actually think Jordan Neely's record is relevant at all, as the passengers on that train (as far as I know) would have had no way of knowing his history. I had not heard that 911 calls involved claims of there being weapons — news articles I have read include statements from witnesses that they saw no weapons being wielded. It's possibly that people thought he had a weapon, but that is different than one being present.
Regardless, while violent threats are understandably scary and do warrant some type of response from the authorities and justice system, in the absence of imminent physical harm they can never be used to justify a violent and deadly response. Being scared of violence does not excuse or mitigate killing someone, and in my opinion this mindset being pervasive leads to a more violent society overall*. It is why we see (in the US) children being shot playing hide and seek, teens being shot for accidentally getting in the wrong car, being killed for driving up the wrong driveway, or for ringing the wrong doorbell. We're not just lacking empathy on the subway, we're lacking it in society. When did we become so afraid of each other?
There are a lot of factors, but a significant one that's often not considered is urban planning. Walkable cities increase trust in communities. Third places (places people can spend significant...
We're not just lacking empathy on the subway, we're lacking it in society. When did we become so afraid of each other?
There are a lot of factors, but a significant one that's often not considered is urban planning.
Walkable cities increase trust in communities. Third places (places people can spend significant amounts of time in that aren't home or work, often in walking distance from their houses; think something like the Cheers bar) offer places for people to meet up, familiarize, and talk to the people in their communities. Building cities for cars instead of people (something that happened in the US and I believe Canada) obliterated much of that, isolating everyone.
That feels a bit too much like a panacea. New York City is the subject of the headline and although on a per capita basis the crime rate isn't particularly high, I wouldn't exactly call it...
That feels a bit too much like a panacea. New York City is the subject of the headline and although on a per capita basis the crime rate isn't particularly high, I wouldn't exactly call it somewhere where people have a lot of trust in random people. Generally the attitude is fend for yourself. It's the most walkable area in the US by a lot, certainly with the most robust public transit system.
I think of it as a factor, not a panacea; there are certainly many other issues. I was also speaking more to the links in gpl's post rather than the initial article, where the running thread was...
I think of it as a factor, not a panacea; there are certainly many other issues. I was also speaking more to the links in gpl's post rather than the initial article, where the running thread was people outside of NYC being killed for entirely innocuous mistakes.
Not having heard about the incident that prompted this, and not having that much familiarity with useful public transport in the US, all of this seems bizarre. As far as I can tell, the incident...
Not having heard about the incident that prompted this, and not having that much familiarity with useful public transport in the US, all of this seems bizarre.
As far as I can tell, the incident here is that a violent passenger on public transport attacked and killed a homeless passenger who was being a nuisance and panhandling. And somehow, the author blames... the other passengers? For not having 'empathy', which appears to translate, for the author, into becoming directly involved in a violent altercation, as some sort of action heroes? Or, somehow, for not telling the killer to stop forcefully enough? Are teachers and students during school shootings in the US also at fault for not trying to confront the shooter? Is vigilantism now not only not discouraged, but somehow some moral imperative? Interestingly, it seems some people did try to tell the killer to stop, but apparently didn't do so forcefully enough for the author? Does the author live in some sort of comic book universe, where problems are solved by random bystanders happening to be cape-wearing protagonists who solve problems by punching people?
This is very confusing. I would assume that, having generally agreed in modern society to hand powers of policing and security to the state, we would not be demanding vigilantism. Would it not make sense to ask where transport security was while someone was being brazenly killed on their train, rather than demanding some movie-plot response from bystanders? Has confidence in policing so collapsed in the US that the response to a violent altercation is to add to the violence, rather than notifying authorities?
And yet, on the other hand, how is it that someone can attack and kill someone, surrounded by witnesses, and not be arrested? How is violently attacking and killing someone considered remotely a legal or justified response to aggressive panhandling, or any sort of uncomfortable interaction? How, even to take the killer's argument, does he think he is justified as a private individual in choosing to violently "subdue" someone, and how does he think he is not culpable for that person dying because he 'didn't intend' to kill him while violently attacking him? What gave him the right to act as the police? I assumed, reading the first few lines, that this would be about an instance of police brutality, not vigilantism.
Surely the culpability of the killer here is obvious? Surely, when choosing to violently attack someone in the name of vigilantism, one bears the weight of the consequences? And if, as the linked articles on the incident suggest, the current city government is interested in promoting 'law and order', wouldn't a very basic element of a desire for law and order be the confidence in being able to go on a train where people are not murdered next to you? Has policing and public safety so collapsed in the US that even governments just expect everyone to go around murderously enforcing their own views of the law?
I was actually just on a train yesterday where there was a problem with panhandling (though for various reasons, I am almost certain that the panhandling was being done by an organized group, for profit). The driver was notified, the police were called, and the situation was dealt with. Even without asking anyone, I can be reasonably confident that other passengers did not think that attacking the panhandler was a remotely reasonable response.
I apologize for the rather flippant and aggressive tone here, but none of this makes any sense.
Well, I don't agree with your first point. Intervening in a violent altercation isn't vigilantism by any definition of the word. It's nice to say that people should stop and notify the authorities...
Well, I don't agree with your first point. Intervening in a violent altercation isn't vigilantism by any definition of the word. It's nice to say that people should stop and notify the authorities while someone is being attacked, but if I was in a chokehold, seeing my vision creep in and feeling the life quickly leave my body, I would really want someone to step in and stop the guy from killing me rather than letting the police know so they can show up 15 minutes later to dispose of my corpse properly.
It's not generally a very good idea from a self-preservation instinct, and I've never been in a situation like that myself, so I don't know what I would do, but I'd like to think that in a situation where a vulnerable person is actively being killed in front of your eyes, at least someone would muster up to courage to stop it from happening, despite the danger and risks.
Police aren't there to stop crimes generally. They're there to deter them, take reports after the fact, and investigate them. If you're a victim of a violent crime, the police being called will almost never actually help you. You're on your own with the people around you.
Maybe there is a considerable difference in the way security and safety is handled on public transport in the US and Europe, and perhaps the way public safety is handled more generally. In my...
Police aren't there to stop crimes generally. They're there to deter them, take reports after the fact, and investigate them. If you're a victim of a violent crime, the police being called will almost never actually help you. You're on your own with the people around you.
Maybe there is a considerable difference in the way security and safety is handled on public transport in the US and Europe, and perhaps the way public safety is handled more generally. In my experiences regularly taking public transport in a few major European cities, there are very often security guards or police on trains or in stations, especially in more affluent cities. They will intervene, and do seem to be there for public safety (eg, they are often completely separate from the people checking for fare evasion). Similarly, public parks will often have police there, and there will often simply be police around the streets. But there is certainly a concern for providing direct protection, to the extent that budget allows, for public transport passengers. And as a result, I do generally feel rather safe.
Thinking about it, though, the only direct recollection I have of police and public transport in Los Angeles, where I also regularly took public transport until it seemed to get worse after the pandemic, was a pair of sketchy LASD deputies (during Villaneuva's tenure, during which it was essentially a gang in open legal conflict with the county, in addition, of course, to having literal gangs of its deputies) harassing some passengers, seemingly with vague drug accusations; having the LASD on the train certainly made me feel less safe.
I think that the NYT opinion by John McWhorter presents a balanced perspective.
The incident has been described as a political Rorschach test: people will see whatever they want to see in it. I find it interesting that the CurrentAffairs writer Lily Sánchez has glossed over or omitted details that would have painted Jordan Neely as an aggressor.
But I think it is disingenuous to describe Jordan Neely as only a hungry, harmless panhandler experiencing a mental health episode. His past record shows a trend of worsening violence: he had tried to push someone into the subway tracks (attempted murder), had beaten up an old woman, assaulted others, attempted to kidnap a 7-year old girl, and more. On that train, multiple 911 calls were made about threats and weapons, which is contrary to the narrative that passengers were either passive or didn't notice the fight. Sánchez wrote, "Neely had reportedly been asking for food and water and saying he was 'ready to die,'" but omitted the full context: that Neely proclaimed that he was ready to go to jail, get life in prison, and was ready to die, which is an utmost extreme threat. A mental health crisis does not render him harmless.
It is very conceivable and possible that Neely had it in him to stab or shoot someone. The sheer terror of feeling that someone is ready to kill you is not something that one can just shrug off with compassion. I say that as someone whom a teenager pretended to shoot point blank with a realistic fake gun. He and his friend laughed, but I still struggle with the memory of feeling icy cold and hot all in a flash, my heart racing yet stopping too, of existing and being ready to not exist.
I think McWhorter has the most reasonable take on it: the real tragedy was systemic and has been in the making over the years. And the onus of naming it and confronting it fell upon imperfect regular people.
I agree overall that this tragedy had, as its root cause, systemic issues that normal citizens should never have been tasked to address. That being said, I don't actually think Jordan Neely's record is relevant at all, as the passengers on that train (as far as I know) would have had no way of knowing his history. I had not heard that 911 calls involved claims of there being weapons — news articles I have read include statements from witnesses that they saw no weapons being wielded. It's possibly that people thought he had a weapon, but that is different than one being present.
Regardless, while violent threats are understandably scary and do warrant some type of response from the authorities and justice system, in the absence of imminent physical harm they can never be used to justify a violent and deadly response. Being scared of violence does not excuse or mitigate killing someone, and in my opinion this mindset being pervasive leads to a more violent society overall*. It is why we see (in the US) children being shot playing hide and seek, teens being shot for accidentally getting in the wrong car, being killed for driving up the wrong driveway, or for ringing the wrong doorbell. We're not just lacking empathy on the subway, we're lacking it in society. When did we become so afraid of each other?
* and guns, obviously
There are a lot of factors, but a significant one that's often not considered is urban planning.
Walkable cities increase trust in communities. Third places (places people can spend significant amounts of time in that aren't home or work, often in walking distance from their houses; think something like the Cheers bar) offer places for people to meet up, familiarize, and talk to the people in their communities. Building cities for cars instead of people (something that happened in the US and I believe Canada) obliterated much of that, isolating everyone.
That feels a bit too much like a panacea. New York City is the subject of the headline and although on a per capita basis the crime rate isn't particularly high, I wouldn't exactly call it somewhere where people have a lot of trust in random people. Generally the attitude is fend for yourself. It's the most walkable area in the US by a lot, certainly with the most robust public transit system.
I think of it as a factor, not a panacea; there are certainly many other issues. I was also speaking more to the links in gpl's post rather than the initial article, where the running thread was people outside of NYC being killed for entirely innocuous mistakes.
In a heavily armed society, I think being afraid of others is just the default state, and for good reason.
The vast, vast majority of people are not violent, even in a country like the US.
Not having heard about the incident that prompted this, and not having that much familiarity with useful public transport in the US, all of this seems bizarre.
As far as I can tell, the incident here is that a violent passenger on public transport attacked and killed a homeless passenger who was being a nuisance and panhandling. And somehow, the author blames... the other passengers? For not having 'empathy', which appears to translate, for the author, into becoming directly involved in a violent altercation, as some sort of action heroes? Or, somehow, for not telling the killer to stop forcefully enough? Are teachers and students during school shootings in the US also at fault for not trying to confront the shooter? Is vigilantism now not only not discouraged, but somehow some moral imperative? Interestingly, it seems some people did try to tell the killer to stop, but apparently didn't do so forcefully enough for the author? Does the author live in some sort of comic book universe, where problems are solved by random bystanders happening to be cape-wearing protagonists who solve problems by punching people?
This is very confusing. I would assume that, having generally agreed in modern society to hand powers of policing and security to the state, we would not be demanding vigilantism. Would it not make sense to ask where transport security was while someone was being brazenly killed on their train, rather than demanding some movie-plot response from bystanders? Has confidence in policing so collapsed in the US that the response to a violent altercation is to add to the violence, rather than notifying authorities?
And yet, on the other hand, how is it that someone can attack and kill someone, surrounded by witnesses, and not be arrested? How is violently attacking and killing someone considered remotely a legal or justified response to aggressive panhandling, or any sort of uncomfortable interaction? How, even to take the killer's argument, does he think he is justified as a private individual in choosing to violently "subdue" someone, and how does he think he is not culpable for that person dying because he 'didn't intend' to kill him while violently attacking him? What gave him the right to act as the police? I assumed, reading the first few lines, that this would be about an instance of police brutality, not vigilantism.
Surely the culpability of the killer here is obvious? Surely, when choosing to violently attack someone in the name of vigilantism, one bears the weight of the consequences? And if, as the linked articles on the incident suggest, the current city government is interested in promoting 'law and order', wouldn't a very basic element of a desire for law and order be the confidence in being able to go on a train where people are not murdered next to you? Has policing and public safety so collapsed in the US that even governments just expect everyone to go around murderously enforcing their own views of the law?
I was actually just on a train yesterday where there was a problem with panhandling (though for various reasons, I am almost certain that the panhandling was being done by an organized group, for profit). The driver was notified, the police were called, and the situation was dealt with. Even without asking anyone, I can be reasonably confident that other passengers did not think that attacking the panhandler was a remotely reasonable response.
I apologize for the rather flippant and aggressive tone here, but none of this makes any sense.
Well, I don't agree with your first point. Intervening in a violent altercation isn't vigilantism by any definition of the word. It's nice to say that people should stop and notify the authorities while someone is being attacked, but if I was in a chokehold, seeing my vision creep in and feeling the life quickly leave my body, I would really want someone to step in and stop the guy from killing me rather than letting the police know so they can show up 15 minutes later to dispose of my corpse properly.
It's not generally a very good idea from a self-preservation instinct, and I've never been in a situation like that myself, so I don't know what I would do, but I'd like to think that in a situation where a vulnerable person is actively being killed in front of your eyes, at least someone would muster up to courage to stop it from happening, despite the danger and risks.
Police aren't there to stop crimes generally. They're there to deter them, take reports after the fact, and investigate them. If you're a victim of a violent crime, the police being called will almost never actually help you. You're on your own with the people around you.
Maybe there is a considerable difference in the way security and safety is handled on public transport in the US and Europe, and perhaps the way public safety is handled more generally. In my experiences regularly taking public transport in a few major European cities, there are very often security guards or police on trains or in stations, especially in more affluent cities. They will intervene, and do seem to be there for public safety (eg, they are often completely separate from the people checking for fare evasion). Similarly, public parks will often have police there, and there will often simply be police around the streets. But there is certainly a concern for providing direct protection, to the extent that budget allows, for public transport passengers. And as a result, I do generally feel rather safe.
Thinking about it, though, the only direct recollection I have of police and public transport in Los Angeles, where I also regularly took public transport until it seemed to get worse after the pandemic, was a pair of sketchy LASD deputies (during Villaneuva's tenure, during which it was essentially a gang in open legal conflict with the county, in addition, of course, to having literal gangs of its deputies) harassing some passengers, seemingly with vague drug accusations; having the LASD on the train certainly made me feel less safe.