After Neely was shot and killed by police, New York Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Eric Adams got into an argument. Neely has a history of violence and was living on the streets. Neely has gone to jail many times and has experienced homelessness.
According to eyewitnesses, Neely lost his cool during a metro journey on Monday afternoon. Freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vazquez filmed his behavior and shared the video with the New York Post, and it gives the impression that he doesn’t care whether he goes to jail. Neely was supposedly put in a chokehold by a fellow passenger on the plane. This individual supposedly had prior service in the Marine Corps. On Wednesday, the New York City medical examiner ruled that Neely died from a “chokehold.”
After Neely’s death, New Yorkers demonstrated at the Broadway-Lafayette subway stop. Gothamist’s Sam Max has discovered additional footage of them chanting anti-police slogans like “Black Lives Matter” and “The Homeless Matter.”
An NYPD source allegedly informed Newsweek that between 2013 and 2021, Neely was arrested 42 times. There had been a warrant out for his arrest since 2021 when he was murdered.
In a statement, Adams said that Neely’s passing demonstrates the need of providing medical care to the chronically homeless rather than allowing them to languish on the streets. The loss of a life is a tragic event. We don’t have a lot of information right now, so I won’t go into detail,” he stated. This is a paraphrase of what I meant: “I want all elected officials and advocacy groups to work with us to make sure people get the care they need and don’t just languish.”
Ocasio-Cortez moved to Twitter to respond to the remark, suggesting that a fairer comparison would be “not being able to clearly condemn a public murder because the victim was of a social status that some would consider ‘too low’ to care about.” She claims that Adams “cut the very services that could have helped him.” In another piece, she described Neely as being “homeless and crying for food at a time when the city is raising rents and cutting services to militarize itself.”
Adams was asked by Ocasio-Cortez during an interview if he believed Neely had been “murdered.” He went on to say that the lawmaker’s assertion was not “very responsible” since they were still investigating the matter. He then said that passengers should be left alone until an investigation was conducted.
This month, Ocasio-Cortez, a vocal proponent of cutting police spending, suggested that Adams reallocate funds originally allocated to police salaries to community social initiatives.