Chokehold Subway Death Ruled Homicide, DA Mulls Charges

NEW YORK CITY — Jordan Neely's death in a chokehold on a Manhattan F train earlier this week was officially a homicide Wednesday, according to the city's medical examiner.

Neely, 30, died from compression of the neck at the Broadway-Lafayette station Monday, according to the Medical Examiner's report released late Wednesday and police.

Disturbing video shows Neely, a respected Michael Jackson impersonator, was held in a chokehold and pinned to the subway floor.

According multiple reports, the man seen with his arm around Neely's neck was a former Marine from Long Island and the fatal chokehold lasted 15 minutes.

A 'Rigorous' Investigation

Police and the Manhattan District Attorney's office are currently deciding whether to arrest the Marine for Neely's death, according to the Daily News, and Alvin Bragg's office has promised New York City a "rigorous" investigation.

Said the District Attorney's office in a statement, “This is a solemn and serious matter that ended in the tragic loss of Jordan Neely’s life."

'It's Been Rough For Him'

Carolyn Neely, his aunt, said the young man's mother was murdered by strangulation in 2007, when Neely would have been just 16.

"It’s been rough for him and all of us," the mourning aunt wrote on her online fundraiser. "He has so many fans, he will always be loved and remembered."

At his mother's murder trial, Neely reportedly testified the first thing he noticed the day she went missing was never came to wake him up for school, according to news outlet NewJersey.com.

“Jordan was a good man,” Neely's distraught father told the Daily News. "He always had a (temper), but he never used to hurt anyone ... He wasn’t bad. He was beautiful.”

'He Deserved Help'

New Yorkers gathered Wednesday to honor his memory at a vigil at the Uptown F train platform, only to find a strong police response, according to multiple reports.At least four people reportedly arrested.

One attendee, who told CBS News said they'd witnessed the chokehold, said, "it did not appear that this man...was seeking to assault anyone."

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine recently shared video of Neely performing Michael Jackson's iconic moonwalk and said he'd seen him perform.

"He always made people smile," Levine wrote. "He deserved help, not to die in a chokehold on the floor of the subway."

'What A Passenger Should Or Should Not Do'

Rev. Al Sharpton has demanded the case be investigated as manslaughter or murder, comparing the man who put Neely in a chokehold to the notorious subway vigilante of 1984.

"Thirty years ago, I fought the Bernard Goetz case and we cannot end up back to a place where vigilantism is tolerable," Sharpton said. "It wasn't acceptable then and it cannot be acceptable now."

Gov. Kathy Hochul called the video of "three individuals holding him down until his last breath was snuffed out of him," a "very extreme response," NBC reports.

"Just looking at that video, you know it's wrong," Hochul said Thursday. "His family deserves justice."Bottom line — this was very disturbing to witness."

Mayor Eric Adams was more ambivalent in his reaction, telling CNN Wednesday night, “We cannot just blanketly say what a passenger should or should not do in a situation like that."