DAILY BEAST
A homeless man died on the New York City subway on Wednesday after a wannabe vigilante allegedly put him in a chokehold for 15 minutes, according to a witness and disturbing videos published by the New York Post. The witness, Juan Alberto Vasquez, told the Post that the victim, later identified as 30-year-old Black man Jordan Neely, was asking for food and started “screaming in an aggressive manner.”
Neely said he didn’t care if he went to jail and threw his jacket on the ground at one point, Vasquez said. A white passenger then came up behind Neely and took him to the ground, holding him in a chokehold for so long that Neely passed out. When EMS workers arrived, they couldn’t revive Neely. Vasquez claimed no one thought Neely “was in danger of dying” but he also said it was apparent that Neely had “passed out or ran out of air.”
He added that he had mixed feelings about the incident because Neely had not posed a physical threat to anyone. The alleged perpetrator, a 24-year-old ex-Marine, was taken into police custody but released without charges.
