What does self-defense mean in US? Subway killing shows divide.
When former U.S. Marine Daniel Penny restrained Jordan Neely with a rear naked choke earlier this month, killing him on a New York City subway car, the moment touched the nation’s most sensitive of cultural nerves.
Caught on a bystander video, it was an intimate moment of violence, punctuated by the contexts of recent rising crime, the ethics of self-defense, and the enduring specter of race in America. Mr. Penny, who is white, lay flat on his back on the subway floor as he held Mr. Neely, who is Black, on top of him, clenching his neck in an arm vice from behind.
Images of Mr. Neely’s killing have sparked deeply emotional reactions across the country, laying bare not only the country’s deep partisan divides, but also the contrasting values underlying the profoundly different reactions to Mr. Penny’s actions on the New York subway. Today in Harlem, hundreds of people gathered to
