How the killing of Jordan Neely on the NYC subway divided America

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Moseley. Jordan Neely knew how to draw a crowd. For years he danced as Michael Jackson in New York subways, people stopping in their tracks to record him doing the moon walk. But in May of twenty twenty three, Neely boarded a crowd subway in crisis. He was homeless, living with serious mental illness, and shouting threats.

Passengers were afraid. A former marine named Daniel Pinny stepped in and put Neely in a chokehold for six minutes. Nealie died. And a video of the encounter divided the country. To some, Pinny was a man doing what the police weren't able to do.

To others. Neely was a victim. Another black man whose life had been treated as disposable. The case went to trial, and a jury acquitted Penny of criminally negligent homicide in December of twenty twenty four. Within days, Vice President Elect J D Vance invited him to the Army Navy game alongside President Elect Trump.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (44 minutes, 7,153 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 10 episodes for $5, and monthly plans are cheaper still.