‘Jordan Neely Was Choked To Death!’ NY Public Advocate Tells CNN Subway Killing Investigation ‘Must Begin With Charges’
Public Advocate of the City of New York Jumaane Williams told CNN that “Jordan Neely was choked to death!” and demanded charges against the man who held Neely in a chokehold during a subway altercation that left Neely dead.
Neely, a Black man, was killed Monday after an unidentified white man placed him in a chokehold for several minutes — a death that has been ruled a homicide by the medical examiner. Neely was alleged to have been “screaming” at passengers before he was physically restrained by three other riders. Neely’s death was captured on disturbing video footage. Activists and others have criticized the response to Neely’s killing, including the failure to charge the men involved.
On Friday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, Williams and Jillian Snider joined co-anchors Erica Hill and Kaitlan Collins to discuss the case, and Williams delivered the loud and clear message that the 24-year-old former Marine who choked Neely should be charged now:
ERICA HILL: Mayor Adams is saying the investigation needs to be allowed to proceed. First. We saw some of those protests. What do you say to Mayor Adams this morning?
JUMAANE WILLIAMS: Well, so first, the baseline that we know, there was a homeless man that was talking about his needs, he was choked to death. That is what’s happened.
I do agree about an investigation. I think that should start with charges. A, lots of things can happen after the charges. But when you have a man who was killed on video by another man, there should be charges that are put out there. And I think it is because who was killed, that hasn’t happened.
I also am concerned that we have a mayor that has yet to say that vigilantism is not what we want. I’m also concerned that we have a governor that hasn’t made those type of statements even previously, saying she’s making laws around bail based on what she sees in the paper, not on what’s actually happening. So I’m concerned that our executives are creating an environment where these things can continue.
Williams went on to say that Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul should speak out against vigilantism and that homeless people have “the right not to be choked to death on a subway car”:
I do want to make clear that you can say vigilantism shouldn’t be happening while saying you’re not sure what happened here. Both of those things can happen at the same time and we need to hear that.
But I also want to be clear, someone assisting law enforcement has always happened. That’s always happened. Here. We have someone that by some accounts wasn’t just holding someone down. They had them in a chokehold for 15 minutes.
Jordan Neely was choked to death! That’s what happened. And we should call out his name. And I want to respect his humanity.
We also, I, just passed a bill thanks to the city council called the Homelessness Bill of Rights. What we didn’t put in there is the right not to be choked to death on a subway car because we didn’t think we had to. We want to make sure that people’s humanity are respected and that we’re saying things that don’t cause the type of vigilantism that we don’t want to see.
Watch above via CNN This Morning.
