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The New York Times greeted us this morning to the following headline: “Man Dies on Subway After Another Rider Places Him in Chokehold.” The subhed continues the passive writing style: “Video shows the man flailing his arms and kicking his legs as he attempts to free himself.”
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The actual story here is that a subway rider put a man into a chokehold, held him there for 15 minutes, and killed him in front of people. Yes, the 30-year-old dead man was, as witnesses report, acting in a “hostile and erratic manner” toward other passengers.
Juan Alberto Vazquez, a freelance journalist, filmed the encounter and posted it on his Facebook page.
“‘I don’t have food, I don’t have a drink, I’m fed up,” the man screamed, according to Mr. Vazquez. “I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die.”
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This all happened Monday afternoon on a northbound F train. The New York City Police Department said in a statement that when their officers showed up at the Broadway and East Houston Street subway station, the 30-year-old man was unconscious. They took him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Vazquez says that the disturbed rider was frightening but hadn’t actually assaulted anyone. “It was a very tense situation because you don’t know what he’s going to do afterwards,” he said.
I lived in New York City for 15 years. Mentally disturbed, homeless people on the subway wasn’t uncommon. Yes, it was often unsettling, but generally speaking, people kept their distance or went into a different car. I never watched another rider literally kill someone before my very eyes. That would stick with me. (My son is disabled, so he can’t ride New York subways anyway, as the elevators rarely work, but during our last visit, I would much rather he’d have seen a disturbed, shouting man than a man killed in front of him.)
A 24-year-old approached the screaming rider and grabbed him. It’s not a crime to be obnoxious on public transit, so we can debate whether this in itself counts as assault. It’s hardly a de-escalation tactic for dealing with someone who’s seemingly suffering from a mental health episode.
While the 24-year-old held the rider in the chokehold, two other passengers attempted to restrain the rider. Vazquez suggested that no one watching this thought the 30-year-old man could die.
“None of us were thinking that,” he said. “He was moving and he was defending himself.”
The problem is that a wannabe Batman learns how to apply a chokehold — perhaps in the carefully controlled environment of a martial arts class. There are rarely medical complications under those conditions, but in the uncontrolled environment of your average F train, putting an aggressive, mentally unwell person in a chokehold can easily result in a “fight or flight” adrenaline response. Like the fine print in a pharmaceutical ad, side effects may include “anoxic brain injury, stroke, cardiac arrhythmia, or trauma to neck structures. The latter may include carotid dissection, tracheal collapse, or bony fracture.”
Vazquez’s video shows the 30-year-old man flailing his arms and kicking his legs as he attempted to free himself from civilians who lacked the law enforcement authority to detain him. When he finally went limp, the passengers who’d witnessed this brutal assault remained in denial.
“He’ll be all right,” said one person on the train as several others looked down at the man’s motionless body.
He wasn’t.
The police took the 24-year-old into custody for questioning but later released him. The 30-year-old’s death has not been ruled a homicide, and although police are still investigating, a spokesperson’s description of events would make you think the 24-year-old was one of New York’s finest rather than some random dude. (By the way, the New York Supreme Court banned law enforcement’s use of chokeholds on suspects.)
“Further investigation revealed the 30-year-old was involved in a verbal dispute with the 24-year-old male and it escalated into a physical altercation,” the spokesperson said in a phone call. “During the physical struggle between the two males, the 30-year-old male lost consciousness.”
I’ve had a loved one who suffered from mental illness. While never physically aggressive, they could start to scream or ramble in a way that didn’t make sense. Fortunately, when they had an episode at a supermarket, no one forced them to the ground and put them in a lethal chokehold.
The sad thing is that most New Yorkers, most Americans even, probably don’t fear winding up in this 24-year-old’s chokehold. Republicans won’t seize upon his quick release as further proof of New York’s “soft-on-crime” policies. Instead, many people will publicly or maybe privately rejoice that someone stood up to the undesirables. But this doesn’t make anyone safer. And most of us — most of us — wouldn’t celebrate.
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