Multiple people were arrested following protests regarding the death of Jordan Neely last week. Neely was restrained after being caught on camera harassing a number of passengers on a New York City subway last week.
Protests Monday led to the arrest of at least eleven people. Some of the protesters protested outside of the subway station in which Neely died.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) reported that a Molotov cocktail was found nearby.
Jordan Neely protests: Multiple arrests made in NYC during demonstration over deadly chokehold https://t.co/kO59Gv1lEe
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 9, 2023
Neely was restrained by two men, including a Marine Corps veteran who held him in a headlock. Following the restraint, Neely died.
The death of Neely captured national media attention, including from a number of prominent politicians. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), often known as AOC, said that he was “murdered.”
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) said that Neely was “publicly executed.”
Bowman wrote on Twitter that “Black men seem to always be choked to death.”
Several New York state senators described the event as a “lynching” while the state’s Working Families Party said that he was “brutally murdered.”
AOC’s comments were criticized by New York Mayor Eric Adams (D), who said that he did not believe it was “very responsible at the time where we are still investigating the situation.”
He said that interfering with the investigation “is not the right thing to do.”
The protests followed similar ones over the weekend, including standing on the subway tracks.
The mayor cited his time as a former transit police officer.
“We cannot just blanketly say what a passenger should or should not do in a situation like that,” Adams said.
He also said in a statement that “any loss of life is tragic” and that there should be greater attention to the city’s mental health system.
Furthermore, social media showed images of the protesters clashing with police, including images of the arrests.
Neely’s death followed a number of crimes on New York City’s subway system over the last several years. In 2022, a man opened fire on passengers, leading to 10 injuries.
This included 15 assaults against transit workers in December 2022 and early January 2023. Conservatives cite a number of law enforcement policies in the city for the rise of crime in the city.
