Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old man known to New York subway users for his Michael Jackson impersonations, has been murdered on the subway at the hands of an ex-marine.
The events occurred this Monday shortly before 2:30 p.m. when Neely acted in a “hostile and erratic” manner, as reported by the police and collected by local media. The impersonator, with mental health issues, was aboard the northbound F train when he began throwing trash and yelling at several passengers.
A behavior that generated tension in the car causing an argument between Neely and the 24-year-old ex-marine. At that moment, the veteran -who has not yet been publicly identified- decides to immobilize him on the ground along with another of the passengers.
The video of the incident, which according to the New York Times, was recorded by freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vázquez, has circulated on the Internet ever since. The footage shows Neely knocked unconscious while a conductor calls the police.
For his part, Vázquez has declared to the NYT that Neely yelled: “‘I have no food, I have no drink, I’m fed up'”, before being attacked. “‘I don’t mind going to jail and getting a life sentence. I’m willing to die.’ He has also claimed that the Neely did not attack any passengers before being strangled.
The Michael Jackson impersonator was a familiar face to the New York police, racking up more than 40 arrests for disturbing public order or trespassing on the subway.
Forensics have confirmed that the cause of death was strangulation, for which the ex-marine has been questioned and released without charge while the Manhattan prosecutor’s office investigates the case.
Brad Lander, municipal comptroller, has already declared on Twitter that the death cannot go unpunished and has emphasized that “New York is not Gotham.” “We must not become a city where a mental patient can be suffocated to death by a vigilante without consequences. Or where the murderer is justified and cheered,” he added.
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