On Criminals and Good Samaritans

With the shift in caring and compassion away from victims 

of crime and toward the criminals in so many of our cities

these days, it certainly follows that the onus is placed on 

those brave souls who intervene to help the victim or at least

neutralize the threat posed by the criminal. This recent instance

of this in New York is most illustrative of this point.

Daniel Penny, a Marine veteran, on May 1 intervened to subdue

an erratically behaving homeless man who was shouting at no 

one in particular, raving about having little to live for. Other 

people in the immediate area backed away from Jordan Neely,

the out-of-control individual while Penny stepped in, subduing

Neely with a chokehold which resulted in the latter's death.

The lawyers for the one-time Marine said that their client 

"never intended to harm Mr. Neely and could not have foreseen

his untimely death." Was Penny wrong to intervene in the first

place? Or to place the hold on Neely to subdue him? All the 

details will be brought out at trial, and it will be  determined 

whether or not that Penny's intention was not and never was 

to kill Neely, but rather to protect himself along with any and 

all bystanders. Over the years in New York, the city has seen

too many afflicted people like Neely wandering aimlessly in

the streets, sometimes becoming violent. Some have punched 

or stabbed passerby. Some have shoved subway passengers to 

their deaths on the subway tracks. And of those who were 

arrested, how many were removed from the streets to whatever

facility to house them? One gets the impression that the DAs 

and the courts want to let them have their bizarre frolics while

cracking down on those who would defend themselves or others

from these people. By the way, Penny is facing a possible 15-year

sentence for 2nd degree manslaughter. 

To be sure, Neely's death was a tragedy. That being said, however,

brings up questions about the decline of public order and safety

as well as the abandonment of mentally ill people to the streets,

laws in past decades closing down the asylums and similar places

where these unfortunates used to go and get medical care,

yet another example of liberal "care" and "compassion" making

things worse --- especially for those who were ostensibly the ones 

needing help. Neely was arrested many times but apparently never 

received adequate treatment. "The whole system just failed him. 

He fell through the cracks in the system," Neely's aunt said to the 

New York Post. And in this case, the system failed everyone.

For even if Penny is not convicted of the second-degree manslaughter 

charge he is facing because the jury acquits him, these charges

and the ordeal imposed on Penny will be more than enough to dissuade

other Samaritans from intervening in such incidents, for if you try to

stop a robbery or an assault you will be the one prosecuted in court,

not the criminal. And the rest of us will be all the more scared to go 

about our business in our cities. 

MEM