Family and friends will mourn Jordan Neely, who was killed aboard an F train, at Mount Neboh Baptist Church in Harlem on Friday.
The funeral is slated to begin with a private viewing in the morning, followed by a livestreamed ceremony. Rev. Al Sharpton will deliver the eulogy.
Neely, 30, a Black homeless man, died earlier this month after Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old white former Marine, put Neely in a chokehold and kept squeezing his neck even after his body went limp. A video that showed Neely in a chokehold on the ground for several minutes went viral after an independent journalist who witnessed the killing posted it on Facebook. The footage also showed two other men, who have not been identified, helping to restrain Neely as other subway riders watched.
Many details surrounding the moments leading up to Neely’s death are still unclear, but the independent journalist, Juan Alberto Vazquez, has said that Neely was yelling that he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t care if he died or went to jail.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has charged Penny with manslaughter. Penny’s attorneys have said he didn’t intend to kill Neely and that he was acting to protect himself and other subway riders.
Many New Yorkers knew Neely as a Michael Jackson impersonator who danced at Times Square and on subway platforms and trains across the city. But family and friends have said that his mental health declined after his mother was strangled to death when he was 14 years old. Housing outreach workers told Gothamist that Neely had been staying in shelters and public spaces. He had also reportedly been arrested dozens of times.
The same pastor who presided over Neely’s mother’s funeral, Rev. Dr. Johnnie Melvin Green, Jr., will lead his funeral service.
Dozens of people have protested Neely’s killing, with some even jumping onto the subway tracks. Some have compared it to past cases of so-called “vigilante justice” in the subway system. The incident has also sparked calls for more affordable housing and mental health care. At the same time, conservative commentators and politicians, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, have called Penny a hero and a Good Samaritan. A crowdfunding page set up to support Penny’s legal defense fund had raised more than $2.6 million by Thursday afternoon.
