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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   31004 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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Witness to Jordan Neely chokehold death calls Daniel Penny a 'hero'

Whoops, wrong link, not sure how that happened. Lets try again.

Witness to Jordan Neely chokehold death calls Daniel Penny a 'hero'

"He’s a hero," said the passenger, who has lived in New York City more than 50 years.

The witness, who described herself as a woman of color, said it was wrong for Bragg to charge Penny with second-degree manslaughter.

"I’m sitting on a train reading my book, and, all of a sudden, I hear someone spewing this rhetoric. He said, ‘I don’t care if I have to kill an F, I will. I’ll go to jail, I’ll take a bullet,’" recalled the woman, who is in her 60s.

"I’m looking at where we are in the tube, in the sardine can, and I’m like, ‘OK, we’re in between stations. There’s nowhere we can go,’" she said. "The people on that train, we were scared. We were scared for our lives."

Penny stepped in when Neely started using the word "kill" and "bullet."

"Why in the world would you take a bullet? Why? You don’t take a bullet because you’ve snatched something from somebody’s hand. You take a bullet for violence," she added.

Freelance journalist Alberto Vazquez began recording the confrontation after Neely was already in a chokehold and offered a second account of the homeless man’s conduct.

"He started screaming in an aggressive manner," Vazquez told the New York Post. "He said he had no food, he had no drink, that he was tired and doesn’t care if he goes to jail. He started screaming all these things, took off his jacket, a black jacket that he had, and threw it on the ground."

I do wonder if words can do justice with how threatening Neely was being on that train. I'm reminded of the Always Sunny bit about "the implication".

This is a tough one where more video would help immensely. In the absence of more video, the pro-Penny side might beclown themselves by doing the same thing that a bunch of leftists did with Rittenhouse and hallucinate, when imagining the event, things that did not actually happen.

The people who are convinced that Penny was in the right without having a lot of information about what actually happened somewhat remind me of those who think that it was justified for people to attack Rittenhouse because he was allegedly being dangerous and intimidating by carrying a rifle around at the riot, or because "what if he was a right-wing mass shooter or something?".

If we had video, we would be able to see whether Neely had made any overt violent moves towards anyone before Penny took action, or whether Neely was just ranting but was not actually in the process of attacking someone when Penny took action.

I think here is the key: some witnesses report that Neely was throwing trash at people. If that was actually the case, then I think that it was reasonable for Penny or anyone else to attempt to restrain Neely. If Neely was just ranting and threw nothing, then I am not so sure. This is all aside from the other question of whether Penny's particular method of restraint was reasonable.

I think that the people who take Penny's side because of the alleged trash throwing make sense. However, I notice that many commentators do not refer to the alleged trash throwing or any other alleged overt violent act by Neely, they just act as if it would obviously be reasonable for someone to put Neely in a chokehold even if Neely had done nothing other than rant about violence. And that, to me, is a lot more questionable, since if Neely was just ranting then there are many stages of escalation that an onlooker could have taken between "do nothing" and "chokehold". For example, Penny could have just walked a little bit towards Neely and made it clear with his body language and words that he was ready to intervene if Neely did anything.

For all I know, maybe Penny did do just that.

To sum up, yeah if Neely was throwing trash then I think Penny trying to restrain him was reasonable. If Neely was just ranting then I think Penny trying to restrain him was probably not reasonable.

A bunch of people on the two main sides of the culture war have whipped themselves up into a frenzy about this event, but I think that surely there is some room for nuance here.

Some people might think that I am being naive, but I have been in a number of violent incidents as a participant and a number of others as an onlooker. I have encountered crazy ranting people, I have encountered crazy ranting violent people, I have been mugged, I have been in street fights, I have been at riots. So I hope that people do not take this as pure armchair theorizing.

I'm inclined by my side of the culture war to be on Penny's side. I think in this case it's pretty strongly supported by the facts. The facts I'm aware of that make me think he acted reasonably are:

  • At least 2 other people assisted him in holding Neely down

  • Nobody is known to have tried to comment or intervene on Neely's behalf at the scene

  • At least one other person, as quoted in the article, also says she thought Penny and the other riders' restraint of Neely was reasonable and necessary

  • Neely did not die at the scene and was moving after he was released - his death happened later as the result of various complications from the incident

An important background fact is that the mainstream media and the activist/protester community is all-in hard on the pro-Neely side. Therefore, anyone who was at the scene speaking out on Penny's side is risking doxxing, social media censure, career issues, harassment, etc. Anyone speaking on Neely's side would be swooned over. Therefore, the fact that at least one other person who was at the scene has come forward on the pro-Penny side, even if anonymously, and nobody has come forward on the Neely side is telling.

I would be open to changing my mind if the facts I cited turn out to be wrong. If it turns out that Penny did infact keep him in a chokehold for multiple minutes after he stopped moving, that would be pretty significant. Or if it turns out that the people helping were Penny's buddies and there were several other bystanders telling them they should let him go.

Ultimately, none of us were on that train, and without good video of exactly what Neely was doing beforehand, it's impossible to judge whether he really did seem sufficiently dangerous to require physical restraint. If all of the people who were there judged that it was necessary, then I think it's best to go with their opinions. I live in NYC myself and take the train regularly. I've seen several people acting pretty nuts. It seems plausible to me that maybe 1 in 100 of them are actually violent enough to justify this.

The thing that I'm wondering about is why put Neely into a chokehold? There were multiple people there trying to restrain Neely, couldn't they just pin him to the ground until the cops come pick him up?

It's really, really hard to pin down a grown man in a way that he can't get out, hit you, kick you, bite you, etc., without hurting him.

You need a lot of dudes to do it. Three is too few. You want six to eight guys. It’s best if they’re not scrawny office workers, but they don’t need to be built like the Rock.

If Neely was just ranting then I think Penny trying to restrain him was probably not reasonable.

Composed armed dudes are dangerous but not scary.

The thing with raging mentally ill hobos are that they are unpredictable and could turn violent for anything and everything in any given moment. That makes them scary.

and hallucinate, when imagining the event, things that did not actually happen

Not to call anyone out, but this community in particular had egregious problems with this when discussing the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. Some people would start describing the situation and then add in a larger fictional context that would justify shooting a burglar.

I wasn't around when Arbery was a live issue, but the hallucination seemed to be limited to the non-traditional-conservative Trump-supporting circles of mine.

The hard core rightwingers pegged them as going down for murder 1 first day, so it is a bit odd that this place went for the weirdo side of it.

Frankly no one knows the full history re Arbery. I remain convinced Arbery was a criminal and the McMichals acted like idiots.

"Jogger" briefly became a meme! Just saying it feels cringe, but "both sides" love to claim that obviously the most recent CW incident fits neatly into my political claims and if you even doubted otherwise for a moment you're dumb / don't get it / are a useful idiot. But there's an awful lot of contingency and idiosyncratic attributes of individuals and situations that go into something like a homicide, that don't necessarily have anything to do with (black) or (racism). (And conversely, this means indexing too much on individual media incidents is a mistake, even if the last three big rape accusations were [true/false] it's still possible about half are [false/true]).

Not to call anyone out, but this community in particular had egregious problems with this when discussing the murder of Ahmaud Arbery.

This community has egregious problems with it in any fraught story, because it's a very human thing to do. It's just the game of telephone: people hear something and misinterpret it, don't realize they have, and continue to argue based on the misconception.

Although I agree with your point, this community has a specific mission not to do that. So "everyone else does it too" isn't an excuse.

Sure, but it takes the sting out of

this community in particular had egregious problems with this

When in fact it's a general problem and not particular to this community.

Yeah I don't think this interview added much evidence other than that other people on the car were scared. The fact that she brought up him throwing his jacket and not any other instance of trash throwing may suggest he wasn't throwing anything particularly injurious.

To me, stripping out of a jacket/shirt is prototypical "I am posturing and about to throw fists" behavior.

In normal conflict situations, the two are mutually contradictory. Someone who is actually planning to attack just does it. Someone who is making a real threat to attack unless you to submit just does that. Someone who is noisily posturing about their willingness to start a fight isn't "about to throw fists" unless someone else accepts the challenge.

  • -14

I have literally seen people take off their jacket and then start punching the other person in a fight. Granted, this was in high school, but that's also the last time I really seriously interacted with the bottom quarter of the population.

Did he take off his jacket and start punching, or did he take off his jacket, engage in a long rant about how he was going to kick ass, and then start punching. I am claiming that the second version (nonspecific ranting followed by violence) is rare.

Someone who is noisily posturing about their willingness to start a fight isn't "about to throw fists" unless someone else accepts the challenge.

Except that things like "failing to immediately obey him" may be taken as accepting the challenge.

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