We must resist the white supremacist narratives that blame Jordan Neely and absolve white vigilantism and the systemic violence of the state.
by Lara Witt, Prism
A white man lynched Jordan Neely on the floor of a subway in New York City on Monday.
He placed Neely in a chokehold for several minutes. Other people held down Neely’s arms and legs as he tried to free himself. But then he stopped moving. A freelance journalist, Juan Alberto Vazquez, filmed the execution and shared the video on his Facebook page.
“‘I don’t have food, I don’t have a drink, I’m fed up,’” Neely had yelled in the train, Vazquez reported to The New York Times. “‘I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die.’”
Vazquez also shared that the 30-year-old did not assault or threaten anyone on the train before the man who choked him to death grabbed him from behind. The police released Neely’s killer after questioning, and they didn’t bring any charges. The coroner has ruled the death a homicide.
City officials, wielding morsels of information like a sword to quell dissent, have shared little to no information about the man who lynched Neely beyond the fact that he is a 24-year-old man. But the police have given the media almost full access to Neely’s medical and so-called “criminal” history.
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