Maintaining Safety in the Topsy-Turvy World Around Us
/By: Joel E. Gordon
Defense is defined as action(s) of defending from or resisting attack.
“Self defense is not just a set of techniques, it's a state of mind that begins with the belief that you are worth defending” - Rorion Gracie: Jiu-Jitsu Grand Master technical adviser for the 1987 movie Lethal Weapon.
Where the head goes the body will follow' is an athletic axiom that coaches teach.
A great memorable quote from the The Karate Kid, Part III (1989) movie - Thomas Ian Griffith as Terry Silver: "A man can't breathe, he can't fight."
New York City
Perhaps all of the above are what Daniel Penny, the 24-year-old Marine veteran who subdued a deranged lunatic on the F train in Manhattan was thinking.
According to witnesses, Jordan Neely, a thirty-year-old homeless man was pacing madly and throwing trash at passengers trapped in a sealed subway car with him. He said he did not mind “going to jail or getting life in prison” and was “ready to die.”
Many locals knew Jordan Neely. He liked to hang out in Times Square, where he would perform dressed up like Michael Jackson—the side slide, the crotch grab, and the moonwalk were his signature moves. Law-enforcement and public-health officials also knew him. He had been arrested more than forty times. From January 2020 to August 2021, he was arrested for public lewdness after pulling down his pants and exposing himself to a female stranger, misdemeanor assault for hitting a woman in the face, and criminal contempt for violating a restraining order. All three cases were dismissed.
He had a history of mental illness. Neely had been involuntarily hospitalized, at Bellevue, in 2021 but, like so many other patients, Neely walked out of the hospital and onto the street. For a while, he lived at a homeless shelter and ultimately, fell through the cracks.
There are believed to be more than two hundred thousand residents of New York City living with severe mental illness. Although not specific to then unknown background details pertaining to Neely, it was obvious to the trained Marine that Neely was a credible threat through observed actions and his overall demeanor.
The ex-Marine quietly stepped behind Neely and put him in a chokehold to hold him for the police and protect everyone on that subway car. In fact, Neely struggled so much that two other men had to help secure him. Neely died in the skirmish.
In response to his death, a lot of people held protests, demanding “justice” for the man making the threats. We’re supposed to be impressed that Neely hadn’t punched anyone on the subway car yet, that he was merely throwing garbage and threatening to hurt them?
Penny’s intent was to protect himself and every other innocent person in that subway car. So now he’s got to pay by being prosecuted for manslaughter by city of New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg?
Baltimore
A Baltimore City police officer shot a 17-year old youth upon reasonable suspicion that based upon training, the officer believed the youth to be armed. Baltimore is experiencing a marked increase in teen violence this year and is actively working, within constraints of a federal consent decree, to use techniques and units assigned to specially designated zones to curtail this alarming trend.
Investigators say the officer was interacting with the community sitting on a stoop talking to a resident when he saw the youth.
"I can't tell you what the officer saw but when they called it out they said the individual was characteristics of an armed person. That's why they started to approach him," said Rich Worley, Deputy Commissioner of the Baltimore City Police Department.
Police say the youth ran off and a foot pursuit occurred.
Investigators say the youth was found to be holding a gun and upon ignoring officers' commands to drop the weapon one officer fired more than one gunshot hitting the teen.
"Well at that point when they realize there's a weapon, they understand that it's a dangerous situation and they have a right to act," said Nixon.
But in Baltimore instead of gratitude that the threat of harm by the youth was stopped, the media focus has been on police training and what criteria were used in the initial assessment that the youth was exhibiting behaviors of being armed. Never mind the job being done to promote if not ensure community safety.
In our topsy-turvy world, results that impact in favor of the greater good are damned. When unlawful aggressors pose a threat, it appears that there are too many of the belief that those posing a threat have lives more worthy of defending than the safety, peace and lives of the rest of us.
As for me, I am grateful to those willing to stand among the protectors. Thank you for your service and sacrifice one and all!
Joel E. Gordon, Managing Editor of BLUE Magazine, is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com
