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Shortening the description of what happened like this IMO really does a disservice to understanding the incident. At no point did anybody, Penny included, set out to kill Neely. No weapons that were not appropriate to the situation were deployed. No physical techniques that were not reasonable considering what was happening were used. He was merely physically restrained for a brief period to make him stop doing whatever it exactly was that he was doing. This was highly likely to have been reasonable and appropriate. That he died from it is an unintended consequence, most likely due to him being in comprehensively terrible health.
The class of people that Neely represents has wildly different health than anything most regular people can conceive of. Which touches back to the giant hole concept that HlynkaCG was talking about. These people start out severely mentally ill, the type that would likely be institutionalized for life in another era. They do lots of illegal drugs, not checked at all for purity or cleanliness. Possibly including injected with dirty needles. They probably sleep on the streets somewhere most of the time. Constantly in and out of jail and hospitals. You can bet they never follow up on any health or legal suggestions offered in those places. Eating whatever comes to hand, no thought to it being clean or healthy.
I know there are legal doctrines covering this sort of thing, which I'm not meaning to debate right now. But morally speaking, exactly what responsibility do we have to this sort of person? If you're both so crazy that you're antagonizing and scaring people on a train, and also so unhealthy and fragile that a brief period of mild restraint is at risk of killing you, then what exactly do we do with you? I have a hard time feeling like society has any responsibility towards such a person.
It sounds like the chokehold lasted for some time after Neely passed out, though it’s unclear exactly how long, so I wouldn’t say Neely was obviously uncharacteristically fragile. But fair enough, it was not the greatest loss to society, as callous as that may be to say.
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He was choked. estimates vary between 6-15 minutes which could easily be fatal if his airway was constricted.
Do you have a source for this? There's video of him still breathing after he was released. I'm not aware of any witnesses or video that reliably puts the chokehold time at 6-15 minutes. Exactly who made that "estimate" and based on what?
Considering the normal timing of NYC subways, usually 1 to 2 minutes between stops, it would be extremely strange for someone to be in a chokehold for "6-15 minutes".
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