Subway killing stuns, divides New Yorkers: New York Times

NEW YORK, May 5 (Xinhua) -- For many New Yorkers, the choking of the 30-year-old homeless man, Jordan Neely, was a heinous act of public violence to be swiftly prosecuted, and represented a failure by the city to care for people with serious mental illness, reported The New York Times on Friday.

Many others who lamented the killing nonetheless saw it as a reaction to fears about public safety in New York, the most populous city in the United States, and the subway system in particular, noted the report.

As prosecutors continue to investigate the circumstances of Neely's death, the case has become a political Rorschach test, dividing the city along long-simmering fault lines, said the report.

Mayor Eric Adams and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, two of the city's most prominent Democrats, criticized each other's response in an uncommonly tense exchange, it added.

Meanwhile, the debate over how best to help people with mental illness is taking place in cities across the nation and has been particularly vexing in liberal cities like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where homelessness and mental illness soared during the pandemic and people in dire need are often in plain sight on park benches and subway trains, according to the report.