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We should all be wary of individuals who call for society to “do something” while they themselves remain idle. They’re often the loudest ones in the group but the quietest when volunteers are required.
The death of Jordan Neely was both foreseeable and avoidable — not just on the day of his passing but when he was a child.
Yet now the American public is being held responsible by the man who has been void of responsibility.
After Daniel Penny’s manslaughter acquittal Monday, Neely’s father Andre Zachary stood alongside other members of the Civil Rights Industrial Complex to blame the judicial system for letting down his son.
“My son didn’t have to go through this. I didn’t have to go through this either. It hurts. It really, really hurts,” lamented Zachary.
“What’s gonna happen to us now?” he continued. “I had enough of this. The system is rigged. C’mon people. Let’s do something about this.”
Violent criminals and drug addicts don’t wake up one day as such, they’re groomed by a multitude of unfortunate circumstances as children.
Neely suffered as a child growing up in an abusive household. He later testified at trial after his mother’s boyfriend murdered her and stuffed her into a suitcase to dispose of the body.
For over a decade, Neely took his frustrations out on society by terrorizing his fellow New Yorkers.
So, when I see a father tell the world at the end of the tragic game that “we” need to “do something,” my question is: Where was he all this time?
What we know about NYC subway choking victim Jordan Neely
Who was Neely?
Jordan Neely, 30, a homeless man, was strangled aboard a northbound F train just before 2:30 p.m. May 1, according to police.
He reportedly started acting erratically on the train and harassing other passengers before being restrained and ultimately choked by a straphanger, identified as Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old former Marine from Queens.
Penny, who was seen on video applying the chokehold, was taken into custody and later released. He was eventually charged with second-degree manslaughter.
Why is there fallout over Neely’s death?
The city medical examiner ruled Neely’s death a homicide, noting he died due to “compression of neck (chokehold).”
Neely’s aunt told The Post that he became a “complete mess” following the brutal murder of his mother in 2007. She noted he was schizophrenic and suffered from PTSD and depression.
“The whole system just failed him. He fell through the cracks of the system,” Carolyn Neely said.
Who is Penny?
24-year-old former Marine Daniel Penny served as an infantry squad leader and an instructor in water survival while in the Marines Corps from 2017 to 2021, according to his online resume. Penny graduated from high school in West Islip, NY.
He surrendered to authorities 11 days after he placed Neely in a fatal chokehold on an F train.
Where was Andre Zachary when his son was arrested over 40 times, including multiple violent offenses?
Where was he when Neely was struggling to mourn his mother’s loss?
Where was his father when Neely was abandoned in the foster care system with no one to advocate for him?
And why is America being held responsible for Zachary’s fatherhood failures?
It’s convenient for Zachary that Neely’s death involved a white person and occurred on camera.
In any other circumstance, this father’s faux outrage wouldn’t have been boosted by leftist foot soldiers looking for another dead black man to hold up as a martyr — and Zachary gets to make white people the problem instead of himself.
He is now the temporary ally of the race-baiting leftists masquerading as civil rights champions who frame Neely’s story as a product of white supremacy, not one of parental negligence.
As the father of an adult child, if my son became a neighborhood terrorist, I would be embarrassed and carry a debt of responsibility for my hand in his creation.
Fathers are supposed to protect their children and guide them toward prosperity with love in mind, and that job doesn’t end when they turn 18.
After Neely’s death, Zachary gave an interview claiming his son was “a good man” —but we know Neely was struggling with mental illness, drug use and violence. Is Zachary lying about his son’s character, or was he so uninvolved in Neely’s adult life to know otherwise?
But now we are told that the American public, especially white Americans, need to be more responsible for Jordan Neely than his father was. We are supposed to care more about Neely’s black life than his father ever did.
Good fathers lead by example and are accountable for their failures. They don’t use their children for convenience, employ race narratives to escape culpability, or pimp out their child’s name for exploitative organizations to sloganize as long as it’s relevant.
Every menace to society began as a child who was neglected, violated or mistreated.
Neely’s death was preventable decades ago — if only he had his father there to protect him as he should have.
Adam B. Coleman is the author of “Black Victim to Black Victor” and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing.