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mental illness
DA Says Man Who Choked Jordan Neely to Death on Subway Will Face Manslaughter Charge
"It's 10 days too late," said one protester in New York City. "Yes it's some step towards progress, but we've been waiting too long."
May 11, 2023
The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed Thursday that Daniel Penny, who last week fatally choked Jordan Neely on the subway in New York City, is set to be charged Friday and could face up to 15 years behind bars.
"Daniel Penny will be arrested on a charge of manslaughter in the second degree," Bragg's office said in a statement. "We cannot provide any additional information until he has been arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court, which we expect to take place tomorrow."
While riding the F train on May 1, Neely—a 30-year-old Black subway performer known for impersonating Michael Jackson—was "acting erratically," but he did not attack anyone on the train, according to witness and freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vazquez.
Neely, who was unhoused, shouted about being "fed up and hungry" and "tired of having nothing," said Vazquez—who posted on Facebook footage of Penny putting Neely in a chokehold that the medical examiner concluded killed him.
Penny, a white 24-year-old Marine veteran, was initially questioned and then released by police; his attorneys claim he acted in self-defense.
Meanwhile, the video has spread online and sparked not only demands for justice but also national conversations about homelessness, mental illness, and racism in the United States.
According to NBC New York:
Multiple protests have taken place in Manhattan since Neely's death, with dozens arrested. Protesters again ratcheted up the volume Thursday, even after learning of the charges said to be coming.
"We need people to be held accountable for their actions, however, we don't want this just to be about the need to incarcerate this man," said Jawanza James Williams, the organizing director for Vocal NY.
Still, some said it has taken too long for the charges to come.
"It's 10 days too late," said protester Tanesha Grant. "Yes it's some step towards progress, but we've been waiting too long."
In a Wednesday speech, Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams used Neely's death to promote his unpopular policy of addressing NYC's intertwined mental health and homelessness crises with forced hospitalizations.
"There is no evidence supporting Adams' harmful and dangerous rhetoric," responded New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Donna Lieberman. "This kind of stigmatization and fearmongering contributes to the victimization of people with perceived mental illness—the same that led to the killing of Jordan Neely."
"The mayor is right that there are more Jordan Neelys in our city," Lieberman added. "They deserve housing, healthcare, and supportive services to get back on their feet, not to be controlled, criminalized, or killed."
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Targeting Mental Illness Will Not Prevent Mass Shootings
Instead of defaulting to mental illness as the reason for mass shootings, we must look at countries with far fewer gun deaths and mass shootings.
Apr 25, 2023
As the trial begins for the mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed 11 people in 2018, hearts and lives are still shattered from the recent mass shootings at an Alabama birthday party and the Louisville bank. Ongoing are calls for gun reform along with cries to “deal with mental illness” by lawmakers, as happened in Nashville. In the January California shootings, a congresswoman speculated that if older Asian Americans were able to access appropriate mental health treatment, “things could have been different.”
In my work as a psychiatrist who sees many people with serious mental illness, I know that focusing on mental health will not reduce mass shootings. It is extremely rare for a person with mental illness to kill a group of strangers.
Not all mass shootings are random acts of violence. Shooters have been provoked by racism, homophobia, homegrown terrorism and crusades against abortion providers. By definition we do not categorize these “socially deviant behaviors” motivated by political, religious, or sexual reasons as mental illness.
Research tells us that only a small portion of active shooters are diagnosed with a serious mental illness. Schizophrenia, a very debilitating mental illness, has become a symbol for aggression and unprovoked violence. However, the risk of violence in schizophrenia is mediated largely by other factors like substance use.
Risk factors for violence in severe mental illness overlap with risks in the general population. Risk levels can be estimated, but there are no tools to predict who among the higher risk people will commit violence. Nor can we predict when such violence will be triggered. In fact, many shooters were evaluated in the days preceding the incident and sent on their way.
To be sure, the mental state of a shooter is undeniably important. Common characteristics of past mass shooters are poorly controlled moods, impulsivity, poor judgment, and lack of empathy. These characteristics inform risk, irrespective of a diagnosed mental illness. A majority of shooters were reacting to grievances.
Shooters often experience a crisis and show change in their behaviors in the weeks leading to the attack - over half die at the scene of the crime, having never sought mental health treatment. An individual’s past history of violence also matters because it is a strong predictor of future violence.
Mental illness is a term used loosely in common vocabulary. Poor mental health is not the same as having a diagnosable mental disorder. Mental health is a state of mind that changes over time. People cannot be neatly divided into the mentally ill and the mentally well. About half of the U.S. population has had some mental disorder at some point in their lifetime. This means almost half of the country could be labeled as mentally ill and considered more likely to commit violent acts.
Recently, I did a risk assessment for a colleague’s patient. Instead of asking for his diagnosis, I gauged his impulsivity, anger, feelings of vengeance and suicidality, and evaluated for active use of substances that alter mood and impair judgment. Most importantly, I wanted to know if he had access to a weapon. Possessing a weapon is essential to carry a destructive plan to completion - and firearms make it easier to cause destruction on a large scale.
Instead of defaulting to mental illness as the reason for mass shootings, we can look at countries with far fewer gun deaths and mass shootings. Since Australia instituted a massive gun buyback program in the 90s, firearm deaths reduced by half, and no mass killings have occurred since then.
In addition to a buyback program, UK Parliament passed legislation to ban private ownership of certain firearms and to require owners to register their weapons. The number of gun homicides in the U.S. is now more than quadruple in comparison to the UK.
It is obvious on a global scale that more firearm ownerships closely correlate with more firearm deaths. However, there is a deeply entrenched culture of guns in the U.S. Attempts to legislate gun ownership are often noted as an infringement of rights - but reducing gun violence is not the same as promoting gun control.
Stronger firearm policies reduce firearm deaths. But since that is so challenging to implement, research can be part of the solution by engaging local communities to better understand complex gun culture and build knowledge of best practices for gun safety.
Furthermore, there needs to be more federal funds than what was allocated after a partial repeal of the Dickey Amendment. Ultimately, everyday citizens and the highest levels of government need to come together on legislation that reasonably controls gun access and ownership.
Relying on mental health professionals to prevent mass shooters is an exercise in futility that will not save lives or prevent the heartache and trauma caused by mass shootings.
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One Group Who Knew All Along How Dangerous Trump Was: Mental Health Experts
From the perspective of his psychopathology, Trump's coup attempt last week was wholly predictable.
Jan 16, 2021
Of course, the media environment was set up for the likes of Trump. America is filled with racism, sexism, and hatred, and with mass media outlets like Rupert Murdoch's Fox News that have no responsibility to the truth. The Fairness Doctrine, which used to protect us, was repealed decades ago by the Federal Communications Commission under Ronald Reagan, and in place of fairness jumped right-wing extremism. Social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Parler, also played a major role.
Yet Trump posed a special challenge. Into the brew of hatred and racism came a mentally disordered individual with a knack for self-promotion. Trump was not merely conniving, and that's the point. He suffers from severe impairments, including characteristics of sociopathy, pathological narcissism, and sadism. A mentally disordered leader in a country filled with inequalities and a mass media environment promoting extremism led to a terrifying situation.
"Trump was not merely conniving, and that's the point. He suffers from severe impairments, including characteristics of sociopathy, pathological narcissism, and sadism. A mentally disordered leader in a country filled with inequalities and a mass media environment promoting extremism led to a terrifying situation."
Mental health professionals started to warn Americans about Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, but they were shut down by none other than a professional organization of their own, the American Psychiatric Association. The APA was unique among mental health associations to adopt the so-called Goldwater Rule, which resulted from Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, when some psychiatrists questioned Goldwater's mental health fitness for office. After that, the APA decreed that it was unethical for mental health professionals to diagnose public figures without a personal examination and without consent.
With the arrival of the Trump administration, however, the APA expanded the Goldwater rule dramatically. Originally, the rule applied to diagnoses. Now, according to the APA, any offer of professional comment regarding the mental health of a public figure was deemed to be unethical. When some mental health professionals started to warn specifically about Trump, the APA pushed back hard, invoking the Goldwater Rule. There were reports that the APA may have acted to protect its federal funding. Whatever was the actual motivation, the APA revisions under the Trump administration troubled many mental health professionals.
Several psychiatrists convened at Yale School of Medicine in early 2017 and published the proceedings in a book, "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President," which raised the topic of Trump's mental unfitness in public discussion.
The mental health experts correctly predicted that the dangers of Trump's presidency were greater than the public and the politicians suspected, that the dangers would grow over time, and that they would possibly become uncontainable. Of course, these experts did not predict the coronavirus pandemic, but they recognized right away that the US death toll from COVID-19 -- now at nearly 390,000 -- would depend more on the president's mental state than on characteristics of the virus. Well before the 2020 election, they warned that Trump would refuse to concede, declare the results a fraud, and refuse to leave office. They warned that the post-election transition would be the most dangerous days of this presidency. Though they were correct in these predications, many political leaders continued to treat Trump as a normal, albeit highly manipulative and unprincipled politician, not as dangerously disordered.
Trump's coup attempt last week was predictable from the perspective of Trump's psychopathology. Convicting him in the upcoming Senate impeachment trial is also important to keep Trump from running for office again. Yet we must draw further lessons.
We must find formal ways to incorporate psychological insights into political discourse. This would involve, among other measures, correcting the Goldwater Rule, adjusting the 25th Amendment to ensure that it can be applied to dangerous psychological disorders, and taking steps to reduce the powers of the presidency so that the nation is not vulnerable to the whims of one mentally unbalanced individual.
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