Representative Maxine Water, Ranking Member of the House Financial Service Committee has responded to the tragic death of Jordan Neely, a black homeless street performer who lost his life due to a fatal chokehold by a fellow passenger.
“Jordan Neely told New York City subway riders he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t care about going to jail. Instead of being helped, he was choked to death,” she wrote in a Huffington Post Op-ed.
Neely, a 30-year-old homeless performer lost his life on May 1 after he was fatally choked, following a mental health episode, by another fellow commuter, Daniel Penny, a military veteran.
Video of Penny choking Neely went viral early this month causing a national outrage.
Daniel Penny, the US Marine Veteran who choked Jordan Neely, has surrendered to the police. He will face second-degree murder charges.
Rep Waters said that Neely’s offense was “being hungry and homeless.”
Unfortunately, the distress that Jordan experienced is the story of over half a million Americans across the country facing homelessness. The dehumanization of people experiencing homelessness, like Jordan, can portray them as disposable and unworthy of human decency.”
“The truth is people experiencing homelessness are more likely to be victims of violent crime than the criminals they are inaccurately painted to be,” she wrote for Huffington Post.
