


A gaggle of the usual suspects brought a bit of anarchy to the Upper East Side Saturday, hopping down to subway tracks to protest the demise of an afflicted fellow not one of them gave a damn about when he was alive.
But what makes the chokehold death of Jordan Neely — a sometimes-violent, regularly menacing subway presence with severe mental-health issues — stand out so much that it provokes progressive tantrums?
After all, as the estimable Nicole Gelinas detailed in these pages last week, 27 others have met violent ends in the subway system since 2020 without generating a ripple of interest among New York’s anarcho-activists.
Neely’s demise, however, checks too many boxes to be ignored:
Of course, it doesn’t help that Albany has neutered the state’s penal code on the theory that true “justice” resides in allowing criminals to go about their business as long as too much blood isn’t involved.
Now the cry is “Justice for Jordan Neely.”
There is no room for vigilantism, declare the same politicians who stood smugly silent as Herald Square Macy’s was being looted during the 2020 George Floyd rioting.
And they’re right, of course. Even Bernie Goetz says so.
But let’s be real: Subway chaos, punctuated by random acts of violence, over time will generate violent responses.
This may not be tolerable, but it is inevitable.
Thus the proper response is to calm the chaos, not to take a knee to Saturday’s subway track rats and their allies in public office.
They want power, not justice, and never forget that.