Shortly after Jordan Neely died on the F Train after Daniel Penny subdued him, I wrote that it was probable that his death resulted from a cardiac arrest, not a chokehold. In other words, Penny, the Good Samaritan citizen protecting the other riders on the subway car, didn’t murder him as the indictment of the NYC prosecutors asserts.

Over a year later, there is still no published autopsy report, even though Penny’s trial has finally started. Instead, one can view video snippets from the subway car. The media and other race hustlers continuously scream, “Chokehold! chokehold! chokehold!” but anyone versed in martial arts knows that this is not true. It was a restraint, not a choke. (More on that, below.)

I was not surprised that the NYC Medical Examiner (ME) announced that the death was a homicide. I suspect that, influenced by racialist activists and political pressure, he ignored the much more reasonable cause of death—cardiac arrhythmia due to excitement and exertion, the same kind of death that often occurs with individuals exerting themselves or excited from an anxiety attack, drug ingestion, or a mental disorder.

Jordan Neely had a history with the NYC Police Department. Newsweek summarized his rap sheet:

A New York City police spokesperson told Newsweek that Neely's record has 42 prior arrests, dating between 2013 and 2021. They include four for alleged assault, while others involved accusations of transit fraud and criminal trespass. At the time of his death, Neely had one active warrant for an alleged assault in connection with a 2021 incident.

In 2021, Neely served a one-year sentence after he assaulted a 67-year-old woman:

The 67-year-old woman fell when she was punched Nov. 12, 2021 and broke her nose, fractured her orbital bone and endured “bruising, swelling and substantial pain to the back of her head,” according to charging documents.

Neely also had a long and terrible record of mental illness, homelessness, and violence. The autopsy report should have the toxicology, but it’s being kept under wraps, so we can only assume, based on his history, that he had drugs in his system.

What we do know is that he was manic, agitated, and threatening on the subway car, which is why Penny restrained him. Although his life was a train wreck, the media relentlessly portrayed him as a cute Michael Jackson mimic more to be pitied than censored—typical leftist talk when a black man is involved in a death associated with violence.

Thus, the chorus is on message—the race hustlers, the media and NYC prosecutors and officialdom—all sing the same song, which has as its top note “chokehold,” followed by mutterings about a deprived black man, a white killer, a trained killer, and a United States Marine.

I am a former high school wrestler, corrections physician/emergency physician, and attorney with expertise in medical forensics. I was forced to try to figure out the truth behind “chokehold, chokehold” media reports by looking at piecemeal video clips. It showed a struggle. Then, a screenshot shows Neely comfortably lying on Penny’s chest in a left-arm headlock. It’s not a chokehold.

A choke hold is a two-arm constriction around the neck’s circumference, with the dominant arm around the neck itself and the non-dominant hand levered on the skull. In the still shot, Penny didn’t have his hand on Neely’s skull. Instead, his right arm was over Neely’s shoulder, with neither his arm nor his hand anywhere near a chokehold position. Neely was reported to be breathing normally; then, he died suddenly. That’s a cardiac death, well known to physicians.

The Medical Examiner said Neely’s death was due to neck compression, but the visual evidence from the subway car indicates there was no lethal strangulation or asphyxiation neck compression at the time of death. The circumstances do, however, set up the case for sudden death from cardiac arrhythmia due to excitement and exertion.

If this sounds familiar, it should. George Floyd had no injuries of asphyxiation or strangulation on autopsy, and as I said, I bet neither did Neely. Nevertheless, politicized MEs both declared the deaths resulted from neck compression. That is a lie for so-called “racial justice,” which too many medical professionals have embraced.

I have no hope for Daniel Penny, who will be railroaded just as Derek Chauvin was in the Floyd death trial. Even though regular people in NYC support Penny for stopping a dangerous man, what will control in a deeply socialist racialist Democrat city is the fact that Penny is white and Neely was black.

John Dale Dunn MD JD is a retired emergency and corrections physician and attorney, medico legal consultant in Brownwood, Texas.

Image: YouTube screen grab (cropped).