It's an honest question that has yet to yield a sincere answer: Who cares about Jordan Neely?
I mean actually cares. Perhaps I should use the past participle.
Because his family certainly didn't. No, not when he was alive. Or else, he wouldn't have been a homeless, drug-addicted bum left to sleep in the city's gutters and aimlessly roam about the unforgiving streets of New York in search of his next fix. Who would let their loved one live like this?
The truth is they didn't give a damn until the prospect of a payday.
Recall how every extended member of George Floyd's "family" crawled out of whatever crevice of the country they hailed from to lay claim—with tears on TV and courtroom theatrics—in hopes they could cut themselves a piece of the pie. Uncs, aunties, in-laws, short of third cousins twice-removed, they all wanted in on the family fortune to come.
"He was a pesky little rascal. But we all loved him," his aunt, Kathleen McGee, said at Floyd's funeral service, among other Oscar-worthy performances, as he was publicly displayed in an open, 14-karat gold-plated casket, nicknamed the "Golden Send Off."
If they loved him so, where were they when Floyd was found with fatal levels of fentanyl in his system?
Gearing up the grift, it turns out. Floyd's family ultimately squeezed a $27 million settlement out of the city of Minneapolis, the largest ever of its kind sought in a civil rights claim.
Floyd's family attorney thanked city leaders for "showing you care about George Floyd."
"This is just one step on the journey to justice," lawyer Ben Crump said of the "long" road ahead to achieving such "justice."
Minneapolis City Council president Lisa Bender choked up as she addressed a news conference about the city councilors unanimously approving the settlement, saying she knew "no amount of money" could bring Floyd back.
But, apparently, $27 million would do.
"If I could get him back, I would give all this back," Floyd's brother, Philonese Floyd, said of the multi-million dollar disbursement, as he cried all the way to the bank.
Jordan Neely's next of kin must have taken meticulous notes.
Throughout the trial, Neely's uncle, Christian Neely, was a frequent face outside the courthouse, joined by the ubiquitous Black Lives Matter lobby. He's been hooting and hollering about the "bad white man" as reporters eat it up. Previously, Christian was arrested for pickpocketing, specifically caught purloining purses.
And now, Neely's deadbeat dad, Andre Zachary, wants to cash in on his son's death.
During jury deliberations, Zachary filed a lawsuit against Daniel Penny, accusing him of negligence and assault for stepping in to subdue Neely. Seeing dollar signs, he's hoping they'll be rolling in that George Floyd dough. According to the paperwork, Zachary is demanding damages in a monetary award exceeding "the jurisdictional limits of all lower courts," a sum so large that it cannot be decided by any lower-level court and must be heard in a higher court with jurisdiction to handle such substantial claims.
All this talk of "justice," what they really mean is money, a payout, "reparations," if you will. Whenever they invoke "justice," they might as well rub their fingers together, the universal "cha-ching!" gesture, to signal it's checkbook-opening time.
Martyrdom has also become synonymous with a money grab.
Currently, we are in the second stage of making a martyr. First is the political theater of a criminal trial following a pressure campaign to prosecute. Then comes the civil suits; if not against the city, then whoever was involved in the incident within a five-mile radius. In this case, that poor soul is Penny, who was arrested 11 days after the ordeal.
Speaking of which, neither did the city, whose soft-on-crime prosecutors argued at trial on Neely's behalf, care about his welfare while he was a living constituent.
City leadership let the likes of Neely, a career criminal, out of jail over and over again.
They repeatedly released the violent vagrant, allowing Neely to run amok, assault the elderly, expose himself to female straphangers, and eventually prey on passengers aboard a busy New York City subway car, culminating in a climactic end to his years-long terror spree.
The irony is it seems like that's exactly where he wanted to be. Neely said so on the day he died, according to witnesses.
"I want to hurt people. I want to go to Rikers. I want to go to prison," a rampaging Neely reportedly said, even going so far as to indicate that he was willing to be locked up for life. "I would kill a motherf**ker. I don't care."
Neely, who also howled about how hungry he was, must've figured: At least he'd be fed and sheltered (on the taxpayer's dime, too). One of the mental health care clinicians at Rikers Island noted that Neely, who enjoyed in-prison therapy there plus three meals a day, "did better in jail than on the streets."
"Oh, but he was just your friendly neighborhood Michael Jackson impersonator! He wouldn't have hurt a fly!"
When covering the case skewing public perception, the image of Neely that news outlets oft-show, the one in which he's dressed as Michael Jackson, is almost as egregious of a choice as the widely circulated picture of a baby-faced Trayvon Martin.
The years-old snapshot of him in a Hollister shirt contrasted starkly with photos found on his cellphone showing Martin smoking marijuana (presumably), flaunting a firearm like a self-styled gangsta, flipping off the camera, and flashing his gold-capped teeth, with a noticeable mustache overhanging his top lip. Those photos accurately portrayed what Martin looked like, and how he chose to present himself, toward the end of his life.
Likewise, the press should show an up-to-date pic of Neely, maybe a mugshot from one of his many arrests (officially 42 on the books).
Of course, that doesn't mean Neely necessarily deserved to die, just because he wasn't as innocent as the press purports, so as not to disparage his memory or disrupt the "white vigilante" narrative racially charging a case that has nothing to do with race and everything to do about public safety in a city beset by crime.
But look at the legacy he left behind: a rap sheet stretching back a decade, including several subway assaults.
Neely was not minding his own business, living a happy-go-lucky life as a peaceful street performer until it abruptly ended. It was drug-fueled and riddled with violence. He was on a collision course with himself that day, a ticking time bomb about to blow. He didn't care if he or others died, so Penny acted accordingly.
To misrepresent the life Neely lived does both the public and him a great disservice.
Since at least 2013, Neely cycled through the revolving door of New York's criminal justice system, never receiving the help he desperately needed. Notably, when Neely's mother was brutally murdered in 2007, his father was nowhere to be found. An orphaned Neely bounced between places, ending up years later on the city's Department of Homeless Services (DHS)'s "Top 50" list identifying at-risk individuals who ought to be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility.
A few months prior to his untimely end, a warrant was issued (and remained active) for Neely's arrest for fleeing a "diversion" program at a halfway house in the Bronx. He had socked two women in their 60s, though the separate assaults were rolled into one felony charge. As part of an "Alternative to Incarceration" plea deal he struck with prosecutors, a judge let Neely go on the condition that he stayed committed to the "restorative justice" programming. He left two weeks later.
Those proclaiming to care about Neely now are the very ones who failed him in the first place—from his family to the city officials championing catch-and-release policies. It's only upon Neely's death do they express a modicum of concern about the destitute decedent, not for his benefit, theirs and theirs alone, when there's something to be gained, a mob to appease, rewards to reap, a Penny to pocket.
As for the Al Sharptons of the world saying they're seeking "Justice for Jordan" in solidarity, they would've rolled up their car window and locked the door if they saw a schizophrenic Neely—high on K2—walk their way while shouting threatening statements at them. They'd clutch their purse closely to their chest. And they'd step right over him if he collapsed on the ground before them.
If they truly want justice for Jordan Neely, it starts with a serious conversation about the increasingly progressive criminal justice system that fails victims and enables perpetrators to re-offend without recourse to rehabilitation.
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