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Notes -
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.
I figured there was virtually no chance that Bragg wouldn't prosecute this guy. He's essentially the Sherman McCoy to Bragg's Abe Weiss - the Great White Defendant that every liberal prosecutor salivates over. If Mike Nifong was willing to commit malpractice for the chance to jail three preppy white boys over a she-said/they-weren't-even-there, why would a prosecutor like Alvin Bragg, a black man to boot, miss the chance to get this guy over an encounter that was caught on tape?
Politics aside, part of me thinks there's a sort of pseudo-theological aspect to all of this, in that American society revolves around the worship of men like Jordan Neely. They can never fail, they can only be failed; they are owed all they can reach merely by their existence; and a certain degree of impunity is simply understood to be attached to their actions, a degree that would never be tolerated of any other citizen. The black criminal is essentially America's God, and the blacker and more criminal he is, the greater his divinity. Killing Jordan Neely was worse than lèse-majesté- it was essentially deicide.
Matthew 25:34 NIV
I can see there being a theological implication of a homeless criminal saying he had nothing to eat or drink and being publicly strangled to death by a former soldier. He may have posed such an imminent threat to others that his killing was justified self defense but that wasn't in the viral video that provoked the response.
Like you I'm much more conflicted on this one than many other cases, including Floyd -- I think I'll just see how it goes, but for now an aside:
Holy heck the NIV sucks balls! I am not overly religious and will accept complaints about the technical inaccuracy of the KJV -- but FFS could an accurate translation not also be just a little bit more, IDK, stirring?
Eh, I have the opposite aesthetic preference. I wasn't raised on the KJV so when I hear verses I know with the Ye's it feels kind of cringe and ren faire-y.
If you substituted the ye's for "you" would that do it? Jesus is on such a fucking roll in Matthew, the bland language just seems to wreck it:
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