By now you’ve likely heard of or read about the incident in New York City this week involving the homicide of Jordan Neely, a well-known street entertainer.
Photo by Juan Vazquez
Neely died after being held in a chokehold on a subway car by a fellow passenger. He had reportedly been acting erratically on the northbound ‘F’ train Monday afternoon yelling he was tired, hungry and wanted to die.
Ex-Marine Daniel Penny is seen in a fellow passenger’s video lying beneath Neely, a Black man, holding him in a chokehold for several minutes. Neely eventually lost consciousness and was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
The Chief Medical Examiner determined it to be homicide. Penny, who is white, was initially questioned and then released.
The event has prompted outrage as police continue to investigate. A grand jury could hear the case Monday.
Anyone of my generation can certainly find parallels between this case and one involving Bernard Goetz in 1984.
And yet, here we are again…in 2023.
I have been using public transportation my entire life.
I have used transit systems in Baltimore, DC, NYC, LA, Toronto, Austin, Philadelphia and other cities.
Growing up in East Baltimore, often living with grandparents who didn’t own a car, the bus was it if you were heading downtown, to Eastpoint Mall or an Orioles game at Memorial Stadium.
Fares were cheap, bus stops were just blocks away and there were routes to take you in any direction–or connect you to one that would. My grandfather commuted to his job downtown at the city courthouse this way. I remember his only complaints were of frequent overcrowding during rush hour and waiting in inclement weather…but, for the most part, it worked for him.
For a good portion of the working class, this was the way to go and it still is.
Even today, I use light rail to commute to my job. It literally drops me off at my place of employment.
I could drive a car for ten minutes or take a walk to my nearby train station and catch the northbound train for a seventeen-minute ride. On nice weather days it’s the walk/train. I get some solitude and sunshine. I get music or a podcast via headphones. Time to myself. On stormy/extreme weather days it’s the car.
Train rides outnumber the car rides about 10 to 1. Maybe more.
And anybody that knows me knows I love a train ride. And I have seen my share of unsettling behavior (A machete pulled out by a passenger? Check.), crime, pandering, proselytizing and general nonsense:
But there is also beauty to be found on the commute. Life in all its forms. It usually doesn’t make the news…but it’s there if you look for it.
Video by Frank Strovel III – April, 2018
Just a reminder.
