Voices Politicizing NYC Subway Death Opposed Mayor’s Plan for Severe Mentally Ill
www.leefang.com
Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to deploy EMT and police to hospitalize severely mentally-ill people from public transit faced protests and court challenges from the left.
I cannot help but think those in the accompanying photo (lynching, really!?) want another summer like 2020, with news commentators remarking about "mostly peaceful protests" against a backdrop of burning buildings.
I am a frustrated relative of someone with schizophrenia. I rarely hear support for what I have seen works for such unfortunate people (including thank goodness my relative). Letting them "free" to live "as they wish" on the streets is a terrible idea. Locking them up for extended times is also a terrible idea (short term is fine and sometimes necessary). Such people need a dignified, supervised, regulated place to live. What works are group homes (for about 10 residents) in which each person has his/her own room (essential for calm and privacy); medications are dispensed and recorded by staff; meals, laundry, room cleaning are provided; and one staff member lives on site. Residents need to be free to come and go. There are rules but they are flexible. If someone stops taking meds for too long, "crisis" is called and the person is taken to the hospital for a day to stabilize. Some won't make it if they need illicit drugs too much, but we have seen that this kind of support is so kind and calming that most want to stay and do stay. The costs are less than the costs of what happens when nothing is done. The residents of the one I know of are all on medicaid or medicare. It is not a private luxury place. There are very few such homes. Why?
Think about this. The only time you hear about black people being murdered/killed — the only time there’s national coverage — is when the killer is white. Today in the U.S. a young black man has fifteen times the chances of dying from violence as his white counterpart. Violence takes more years of life from black men than cancer, stroke, and diabetes combined. And it’s not because of white people. But we’re not allowed to talk about this.
I really admire your willingness to take this issue on because it's clearly aroused mobs of people for whom any kind of nuanced discussion has become impossible. Everything has to be, sorry for the pun, black or white. What bothers me is that in the video, at least one of the men who helped the marine hold Neely down seems to be a person of color, but the only one taking the heat is the White Marine. Maybe he was a racist, but right now I don't think so based on that video, and we need to know a lot more before we start calling him a murderer. All I know right now is it was a tragedy, and baying for the White guy's blood is not going to help make sure it doesn't happen again.
Wow, total FUBAR. Can't help, but think though, that I might have done the same thing as the young Marine given the circumstances. I mean, who knows how a situation like this can go? Evidently, more than one person felt like they had to act.
First we should stop allowing activists who can only see race as the issue to stranglehold the narrative. Honestly I think we should all be ashamed here that we have allowed the homeless issue to become what it is. We can spend billions in other countries, billions creating diversity departments to root out racism in every aspect of society whether it is a problem or not but we just let thousands with mental and drug issues live in squalor and desperation on our city streets. It is heartbreaking.
Lee, I read once about a program in Rhode Island that was having great success in dealing with homelessness.
It's unsettling that these activists show such little, if any, concern for those who have been terrorized and/or physically assaulted in public by the mentally unstable.
It’s as if the emotional and psychological toll on the victims matters not; as if it’s morally superior to reflexively defend/excuse attacks on innocents while insisting that only remedies with their imprimatur are acceptable.
It’s hard not to believe that these players are more concerned with acquiring power, and throwing their weight around, than solving a social problem.
Standing in the way of progress, then waiving the bloody shirt for more alienation, distrust and division and racialism in our society. It’s almost like they want this to keep happening...
“Lynching”. Give me a break already with the race baiting. Have we considered that maybe the marine also has a “mental illness”? Perhaps PTSD from serving our country? If so, will they drop their argument? Of course not.
Lee, great reporting as usual. I wonder, though, if calling those who are trying to racialize Neely's tragic death "left" and "left-wing" clarifies or confuses the issue. The liberal/bourgeois (so-called) "left" certainly wishes to frame everything in terms of race rather than of class, but the working-class/proletarian left wouldn't dream of doing so. I understand that as far as the MSM is concerned, liberal = left (just as conservative = right), but that conflation of liberal with left has, as I'm sure you know, a long CIA-engineered history. Because the MSM doesn't make a distinction between bourgeois left and proletarian left, and you are anything but a member of the MSM, you might consider substituting "liberal" ( or even "liberal left," if necessary) for "left" or "left-wing" for the sake of clarity and to avoid reinforcing the misleading and divisive MSM narrative. Thanks again for an otherwise excellent report.
I think it's possible I had a run-in with this guy on the G train a couple years ago.
I was on the opposite side of the car, and a guy with a beard was screaming things that sounded the same.
He focused on an older white lady - older than me, maybe in her 60s. He was screaming about how he was hungry and wanted money.
Because of course we live in a society of assholes, not a single person got up to help her.
I was coming back from a music lesson, and had a brand new (to me, anyway) guitar in a soft case with me and was hesitant to get into an altercation.
No one else got up to help her, so I had to cross the whole car full of cowards and tell him to leave her alone.
He started screaming at me, which was preferable. At one point he pulled his pants down, fully exposing himself, and said he was going to rape me.
Gross.
When my stop came, I just wanted to leave, but he said he was going to stop me. I pushed past him, and as I stepped off, he grabbed my guitar.
At this point I was forced to defend myself, subdued him, and left.
I can't say for sure it was the same guy - all the pictures of him are either unclear or of him in his MJ outfit, but the broad strokes all match.
We need to find help for these people. What happened to his mother is terrible. What kind of a society are we?
It's bad that not a single person stepped up to help that old woman, and it's absolutely fucking horrible that we allow these vulnerable people to die in the streets.
I cannot help but think those in the accompanying photo (lynching, really!?) want another summer like 2020, with news commentators remarking about "mostly peaceful protests" against a backdrop of burning buildings.
I am a frustrated relative of someone with schizophrenia. I rarely hear support for what I have seen works for such unfortunate people (including thank goodness my relative). Letting them "free" to live "as they wish" on the streets is a terrible idea. Locking them up for extended times is also a terrible idea (short term is fine and sometimes necessary). Such people need a dignified, supervised, regulated place to live. What works are group homes (for about 10 residents) in which each person has his/her own room (essential for calm and privacy); medications are dispensed and recorded by staff; meals, laundry, room cleaning are provided; and one staff member lives on site. Residents need to be free to come and go. There are rules but they are flexible. If someone stops taking meds for too long, "crisis" is called and the person is taken to the hospital for a day to stabilize. Some won't make it if they need illicit drugs too much, but we have seen that this kind of support is so kind and calming that most want to stay and do stay. The costs are less than the costs of what happens when nothing is done. The residents of the one I know of are all on medicaid or medicare. It is not a private luxury place. There are very few such homes. Why?
These people don't want to solve the problems because these people are the problem
Think about this. The only time you hear about black people being murdered/killed — the only time there’s national coverage — is when the killer is white. Today in the U.S. a young black man has fifteen times the chances of dying from violence as his white counterpart. Violence takes more years of life from black men than cancer, stroke, and diabetes combined. And it’s not because of white people. But we’re not allowed to talk about this.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/jordan-neely-wasnt-murdered
I really admire your willingness to take this issue on because it's clearly aroused mobs of people for whom any kind of nuanced discussion has become impossible. Everything has to be, sorry for the pun, black or white. What bothers me is that in the video, at least one of the men who helped the marine hold Neely down seems to be a person of color, but the only one taking the heat is the White Marine. Maybe he was a racist, but right now I don't think so based on that video, and we need to know a lot more before we start calling him a murderer. All I know right now is it was a tragedy, and baying for the White guy's blood is not going to help make sure it doesn't happen again.
The loudest activist voices dont care about the less fortunate half as much as they hate you and desperately wish to elevate their own social status.
Wow, total FUBAR. Can't help, but think though, that I might have done the same thing as the young Marine given the circumstances. I mean, who knows how a situation like this can go? Evidently, more than one person felt like they had to act.
First we should stop allowing activists who can only see race as the issue to stranglehold the narrative. Honestly I think we should all be ashamed here that we have allowed the homeless issue to become what it is. We can spend billions in other countries, billions creating diversity departments to root out racism in every aspect of society whether it is a problem or not but we just let thousands with mental and drug issues live in squalor and desperation on our city streets. It is heartbreaking.
Lee, I read once about a program in Rhode Island that was having great success in dealing with homelessness.
It's unsettling that these activists show such little, if any, concern for those who have been terrorized and/or physically assaulted in public by the mentally unstable.
It’s as if the emotional and psychological toll on the victims matters not; as if it’s morally superior to reflexively defend/excuse attacks on innocents while insisting that only remedies with their imprimatur are acceptable.
It’s hard not to believe that these players are more concerned with acquiring power, and throwing their weight around, than solving a social problem.
Standing in the way of progress, then waiving the bloody shirt for more alienation, distrust and division and racialism in our society. It’s almost like they want this to keep happening...
“Lynching”. Give me a break already with the race baiting. Have we considered that maybe the marine also has a “mental illness”? Perhaps PTSD from serving our country? If so, will they drop their argument? Of course not.
Lee, great reporting as usual. I wonder, though, if calling those who are trying to racialize Neely's tragic death "left" and "left-wing" clarifies or confuses the issue. The liberal/bourgeois (so-called) "left" certainly wishes to frame everything in terms of race rather than of class, but the working-class/proletarian left wouldn't dream of doing so. I understand that as far as the MSM is concerned, liberal = left (just as conservative = right), but that conflation of liberal with left has, as I'm sure you know, a long CIA-engineered history. Because the MSM doesn't make a distinction between bourgeois left and proletarian left, and you are anything but a member of the MSM, you might consider substituting "liberal" ( or even "liberal left," if necessary) for "left" or "left-wing" for the sake of clarity and to avoid reinforcing the misleading and divisive MSM narrative. Thanks again for an otherwise excellent report.
I think it's possible I had a run-in with this guy on the G train a couple years ago.
I was on the opposite side of the car, and a guy with a beard was screaming things that sounded the same.
He focused on an older white lady - older than me, maybe in her 60s. He was screaming about how he was hungry and wanted money.
Because of course we live in a society of assholes, not a single person got up to help her.
I was coming back from a music lesson, and had a brand new (to me, anyway) guitar in a soft case with me and was hesitant to get into an altercation.
No one else got up to help her, so I had to cross the whole car full of cowards and tell him to leave her alone.
He started screaming at me, which was preferable. At one point he pulled his pants down, fully exposing himself, and said he was going to rape me.
Gross.
When my stop came, I just wanted to leave, but he said he was going to stop me. I pushed past him, and as I stepped off, he grabbed my guitar.
At this point I was forced to defend myself, subdued him, and left.
I can't say for sure it was the same guy - all the pictures of him are either unclear or of him in his MJ outfit, but the broad strokes all match.
We need to find help for these people. What happened to his mother is terrible. What kind of a society are we?
It's bad that not a single person stepped up to help that old woman, and it's absolutely fucking horrible that we allow these vulnerable people to die in the streets.
Wish more people could read your article. There are 2 or 20 sides to every incident and the NYT always gets it wrong.
Both things can be true: Adams’ plan could have been a disaster and rightly opposed and People are wrongly couching Nealy’s murder in racial terms.
NYC needs publicly funded housing and health/mental health services for its residents. Police have nothing to do with that.
Don't mess with Lee Fang because his reporting has teeth that cut through the noise. Pun intended.