Protesters and mourners gathered on a subway platform in lower Manhattan Wednesday, calling for justice for Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old unhoused subway rider and Black man who was choked to death Monday while he was suffering an apparent mental health crisis. Neely was a busker well known for his impersonations of Michael Jackson. He was reportedly yelling and complaining of hunger and thirst but had not physically attacked anyone before three other passengers tackled him on the floor of the train. An unnamed former marine held Neely in a chokehold. His death has been ruled a homicide and likened to a lynching. This is a protester speaking yesterday from the Broadway-Lafayette subway station.

Protester: “A lot of us are closer to homelessness than we are to being millionaires. And so, to see someone be treated like that as a homeless person is scary for people who are unhoused or scary for people who are at risk of being homeless, whose rent is overdue, whose rent is being increased, whose shelter is the next step. So, it’s really, really scary in a city that is going through a housing crisis to see homeless people being murdered.”