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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   30001 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/12/us/jordan-neely-daniel-penny-new-york-subway-death-charge/index.html

Daniel Penny, a 24-year old Marine, turned himself to police after being charged with 2nd degree manslaughter for the killing of Jordan Neely. It looks like I was initially wrong. I said that drugs may have played a role given that the original NYTs story, which I replied to, from a week ago said that Neely had been choked for only 2-3 minutes and released and was unresponsive. The updated story is that he was choked out for much longer, as long as 15 minutes, which would have def. been lethal, and the video is pretty bad.

So retract my original argument in which I posit drugs played a role. This is why you should always wait until you have all the information before forming an opinion. I didn't think the story would blow up like it did. I just assumed it was some random altercation. The video is why it went so viral. I think Penny is not without some guilt here. Keeping someone in a choke for so long is going to end in death. It's likely Neely was not rendered unconscious near-instantly from blood loss to the brain, such as from a sleeper hold as I assumed from the original story (I assumed Penny put Neely in a hold, and then Neely went limp in 20-30 seconds and did not come back), but far worse, had been suffocated to death, like being held underwater because his windpipe was restricted. That's why he was flailing around. It would have been more humane had Penny just shot him although that would have carried a worse charge.

A second degree manslaughter conviction is not that bad. only max 15 years for killing someone, and with parole Penny may only spend 5 years, which is a pretty lenient sentence for killing a guy, and not even in self defense or accident. By comparison, Ross Ulbricht faces multiple life sentences despite not killing anyone. I cannot say Penny is not without some blame in this matter. But In Penny's defense, the police took too long to come, and despite Marine training he and his accomplices didn't know what else to do.

A second degree manslaughter conviction is not that bad. only max 15 years for killing someone

Only. Only 15 years and a normal-life-ending felony record, for restraining a violent drug-addled mentally-ill person who the government refused to do anything about. If that's what you call "not that bad", what IS "that bad"? Crucifixion?

Since I was asked to elaborate: Just about every part of this comment is extremely low quality.

restraining

Excuse me? A 15 minute chokehold resulting in a dead person is "restraining"?

violent

This is not in evidence. Unless you mean his prior assault arrests, which were not known to anyone on the train and thus irrelevant.

drug-addled mentally-ill

Neither of these remotely justifies death.

Excuse me? A 15 minute chokehold resulting in a dead person is "restraining"?

Yes. Restraining a person sometimes causes their death, as it did in this case.

This is not in evidence. Unless you mean his prior assault arrests, which were not known to anyone on the train and thus irrelevant.

We have information -- like his prior conviction for assault -- that those on the train did not. On the other hand, they had information we did not, such as his exact behavior at the time. Our prior for Penny acting violently or in a threatening way on the train should indeed be affected by his previous arrests.

Neither of these remotely justifies death.

Death requires no justification. The question is whether Neely's behavior justified Penny's actions, not whether they justified the result.

Restraining a person sometimes causes their death, as it did in this case.

If Perry does get convicted of manslaughter, it is false that it would be for restraining someone. Death is an essential component. There is absolutely no reason to describe the events this way except to make it seem like Perry didn't do anything wrong, without addressing any of the relevant facts.

Our prior for Penny acting violently or in a threatening way on the train should indeed be affected by his previous arrests.

"Our" prior does not justify your claim that he was violent. This is at best extremely weak evidence; the only witness statement I saw claimed he was not violent, which while obviously far from perfect is better evidence.

The question is whether Neely's behavior justified Penny's actions, not whether they justified the result.

This is just bizarre. Are you of the opinion that the consequences (or at least, expected consequences) of an action, have nothing to do with whether they are justified? I suppose this would be consistent with your idea that drivers shouldn't be held responsible for driving recklessly.

Are you of the opinion that the consequences (or at least, expected consequences) of an action, have nothing to do with whether they are justified?

It is Penny's actions which are justified or unjustified, not what followed from them. It is true that he might be facing assault or strangulation charges rather than manslaughter if Neely hadn't die, but it is not Neely's death which requires justification; it is Penny's actions which led to that death. The distinction is important; skipping over it is how you get to arguments like "Neely's behavior didn't justify killing him". The question is whether Penny's actions in putting him in a chokehold and thereby risking Neely's death were justified, not whether Neely's death was justified.

You made a big deal about the severity of the punishment. Whether his actions were justified is not dependent on whether someone died, but the level of punishment, if a crime was committed, very much does depend on whether someone died. Why did you bother to make a big deal about the size of the punishment? Either he was justified and there will be no punishment, or he wasn't and is guilty killing another person, in which case a significant punishment is clearly appropriate.

The question is whether Penny's actions in putting him in a chokehold and thereby risking Neely's death were justified, not whether Neely's death was justified.

I think this is just semantic games. We have legal standards for when civilians can use lethal force (for what I hope are obvious reasons) which amount to "it is justified to kill this person." Using lethal force does not always result in death, but death has to be a justifiable outcome in order for the use of deadly force to be legitimate.

At some point, people need to live reality on reality's terms and realize that the New York City policy, culture, and values are all pretty clear that being screamed at, threatened, and occasionally assaulted by vagrants is normal and that doing anything about it will result in consequences for the person that interfered with the normal state of affairs. The options for New York City residents are to accept the normalcy of cowering before their moral betters or electing to leave. I have plenty of complaints about the local politics in my area, but the local expectation isn't that lunatics get to berate normal people and ruin public spaces. I would strongly suggest moving to a place like that for anyone in New York that is sick of garbage strewn on the streets and vagrants disrupting their work commute.

What sort of indicators would be most salient when evaluating where to move to?

If I were moving right now, I would care about demographics, population change, and economic freedom, but none of that would substitute for just visiting and seeing what I think.

How the state you are moving to treats gun rights is usually a good indicator. Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground laws are another further indicator. But the really big indicators are social, not legal.

I mean, there is another option - take simple steps to anonymize yourself before intervening, and if things go wrong flee the scene. A motivated modern police force can absolutely catch you if they decide to pursue the case, but they have a lot of similarly sad cases on their plates. A single extra "mentally ill vagrant dies in a scuffle he likely started, suspect disappears" isn't going to attract undue law-enforcement resources, and it's going to be suppressed in the media rather than being shouted on the street corners. "Blue-voting city fails its most vulnerable, again" isn't a narrative that pays the bills like "Outgroup member murders innocent in broad daylight", and the boys in blue have even less motivation to track you down in the absence of public outcry.

The downsides I can think of are that if you do get caught you'll be punished more severely, and that certain anonymizing tactics might make you seem like the aggressor and be on the wrong side of further bystander intervention. For the former, I'm not familiar enough with US/NYC law to know how badly, but since it seems probable that Penny is going to jail for a long time, a few more years doesn't seem like a good tradeoff against something like a 90% chance of a clean getaway. For the latter - well, this seems to come up rarely enough that two separate people in a train car being willing to get their hands dirty seems unlikely, and a brawl between unrelated belligerents is less likely to inspire heroics than one-sided harassment.

Any time someone dies they're going to be looking for you. There's a lot of minor crime in New York but not a lot of killing, relatively speaking.

That can work for something like a fistfight. Maybe even if the vagrant is in the hospital but isn't terribly injured. Bodies always have drawn law enforcement attention.

I mean, there is another option - take simple steps to anonymize yourself before intervening, and if things go wrong flee the scene.

Not possible using a train/subway system due to CCTV. Even if you went into some toilets and did a full change of clothing and masked up, they would back trace your movements when analyzing footage and probably be able to figure out who you were (height/build). This is in a homicide case anyway where cops are diligent about their investigations. Simple assault and maybe they wouldn't bother.

You have to be the change you want to see.

Only 15 years and a normal-life-ending felony record, for restraining a violent drug-addled mentally-ill person who the government refused to do anything about.

There are mentally ill people when I go down the street. some of them yell at pedestrians. I would love if someone could do something about it, but that's not the job of citizens even if he is a major burden on society and net-negative value. I cannot just go up to one of those guys and choke him out, not that I could or would choose to take that risk.

It wasn't on the street though. They were captives in the actual environment this took place.

Changes things.

that is a good point. Subways are a hotbed of culture war, . You got many people of diverse backgrounds confined to this small metal tube, same for airplanes. Most passengers are behaved; it only takes one to fuck things up for everyone.

Man, that's an awful lot of euphemism, nonsense, and irrelevance crammed into such a short post.

  • -24

Make an argument; sneering is not an argument.

I can do that, but when are you going to make the same point to nybbler ?

When he posts something that is nothing but low-effort sneering, like your post.

We don't mod people for making bad arguments (or arguments you don't like).

The comment I replied to is low-effort sneer that contains claims but no arguments.

I'm not interested in going round and round with your whining about why I modded Suzy but I didn't mod Johnny. If you disagree with my mod decision, feel free to appeal to Zorba. (Protip: reporting every mod comment that makes you angry multiple times is not an effective way to advance your case.)

I'm not interested in going round and round with your whining about why I modded Suzy but I didn't mod Johnny.

There are some things that moderators should be doing regardless of whether they are interested in them or not.

It's like having a restaurant owner who's "not interested" in making sure his food is stored at the right temperature.

More comments

The term whining here is uncalled for. That's a reflection on your irritation, not the complaint. One might also argue that for a mod to use such terms discourages active participation, to say nothing of direct feedback. Just a thought.

edit for typos

More comments

Presumably, the mods will make that point when he doesn't make an argument. Reading his comment, I see:

  • A felony conviction is very bad,

  • there were mitigating circumstances in this case, and

  • the top level comment used a nonstandard definition of "bad".

You can believe whatever you want about the quality of the comment, but the arguments about the situation are there.

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