This is a huge step forward after the insanity that swept the country after George Floyd died in 2020.
And some people are claiming this is the end of an era.
If it is, it's only because white people are coming to their senses.
Without their connivance and participation, we would never have had George Floyd madness.
Many black people don't seem to have changed.
But they'll fizzle out without white support.
On May 1st last year, 24-year-old architecture student and former Marine Daniel Penny was riding on the New York City subway.
30-year-old Jordan Neely got on and started acting crazy and dangerous.
As Wikipedia reports, he was screaming, I don't mind going to jail and getting life in prison.
I'm ready to die.
Someone is going to die today.
He made half-lunge movements within half a foot of people.
A mother with a child hid behind her stroller, believing she might be killed.
Penny initially ignored Neely, but acted after he saw Neely approach the mother and son hiding behind a stroller while saying, I will kill.
That was when Mr. Penny took him to the floor of the subway car, where a black man helped restrain Neely.
Here's what a witness told the police.
The guy with the brown jacket took him to the ground.
Not a little hard to pull, just enough to secure him.
And the guy fought.
And he kept holding him.
And then everybody totally realized what was going on.
I think this guy was on drugs.
You know, because when he came in, he was unbelievably off the charts.
He's scared the living day lights out.
At trial, one woman testified that she thought she was truly going to die after Jordan Neely boarded the subway.
Mr. Penny used what the media wrongly calls a chokehold.
Choking means blocking the airway.
Note Mr. Penny's elbow right below the chin.
It's impossible to choke someone that way.
Instead, Penny was using his forearm and biceps to press on Penny's carotid arteries that feed the brain.
Cut off the blood and someone passes out.
My personal police expert, Officer John Patterson, says he has immobilized 100 violent perps with that technique.
There's no choking.
It's called the vascular neck restraint.
The DA's office was out to get Mr. Penny, and the medical examiner ruled the death a homicide by strangulation.
She made her ruling while still waiting for toxicology results.
So she didn't even know that Neely was high on artificial marijuana, which can be 100 times more potent than the natural stuff.
Astonishingly, she added that Neely could have had enough fentanyl in his system to knock down an elephant, and that still would not have changed her opinion.
He also had a sickle cell condition that can limit breathing.
Blacks started screaming.
Three days after the incident, this lady was demanding...
Arrest Daniel Penny and everyone that was on that train.
Just a few days after that, protesters clash with police at demonstrations over Jordan Neely's death, 11 arrested.
This one was yelling about racism, but was not arrested.
The police had initially decided Mr. Penny acted reasonably, but New York DA Alvin Bragg charged him with second-degree homicide, maximum penalty 15 years, and set bond at $100,000.
He dropped all charges against the arrested protesters.
All this was big news.
Voice of America wrote, reaction to NY subway killing breaks along partisan divide.
It should have said, along racial divide.
Black Congressman Jamal Bowman said, we have another black man publicly executed.
34-year Congresswoman Maxine Waters said Neely was murdered by a vigilante who pinned him down and choked him to death.
Just two days after the incident, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, Jordan Neely was murdered.
The black speaker of the New York City Council, Adrienne Adams, railed against the double standards that black people and other people of color continue to face.
Just three days after Neely's death, a black woman wrote for the New York Times, making people uncomfortable can now get you killed.
All she said about Jordan Neely was that he was a Michael Jackson impersonator experiencing homelessness who cried out some disturbing things.
Roxane Gay failed to mention that the last time Neely did his Michael Jackson act was probably 10 years ago.
also that when he was eighteen his mother who had had him when she was eighteen and single was murdered by her boy friend that this put him into a psychotic tailspin
Roxanne didn't mention that Neely's father abandoned him, and he stayed with his grandparents when he wasn't on the streets.
She didn't write that in 2010 he threatened to kill his grandfather, and they wouldn't let him inside sometimes at night because they were afraid of him.
Nor did Roxanne mention Neely's 42 arrests that included serious violence.
Neely was far more important dead than alive.
He got a lavish George Floyd-style funeral where Al Sharpton roared about racism in America.
I doubt that Al needed notes.
When the trial began in late October, Neely's father, who had paid no attention to his son for years, showed up in court every day.
A revolving group of family members comes each day, largely cordoned off by activists and members of the Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network.
While Mr. Neely's family members and supporters have packed the courtroom gallery, Mr. Penny's relatives were less evident.
Maybe they had jobs.
The blacks were there to keep pressure on jurors, and Neely's father did his best.
After the woman testified she thought she would die, Neely's father stood up in the gallery and as he left said, she's a fucking liar.
Every day blacks were at the courthouse with bullhorns.
They made such a racket you could hear no justice, no peace in the courtroom on the 13th floor.
Mr. Penny's lawyers said this was jury intimidation.
The judge said it was free speech.
At least jurors couldn't hear this bit of black eloquence.
By the end of the trial, They were pro-Penny demonstrators.
This guy's wearing a Marine jacket, and his sign says, Daniel Penny is a hero.
Maxwell Wiley told jurors to deliberate only on the most serious charge of second-degree murder.
If they voted to acquit, they could then consider the lesser charge of negligent homicide.
The jury deadlocked.
That should have been a mistrial.
But the prosecution asked to withdraw the more serious charge and tell the jury to decide on negligent homicide.
In what one independent lawyer called a blatant miscarriage of justice, the judge agreed.
Obviously, the idea was that if some jurors wouldn't convict on the more serious charge, they would come around on the lesser charge.
To everyone's surprise, including mine, the jury acquitted him.
The Times tried to downplay what happened next.
Neely's father lashed out at supporters of Mr. Penny and the judge asked him to leave the room.
Justice Wiley shouted to get control of the room.
One woman, unable to hold back her cries, ran into the hallway where her wails could be heard.
One woman.
I suppose it could have been Daniel Penny's mother.
As Mr. Neely's family was escorted out of the courtroom, Why did they need an escort?
Hawk Newsom, a co-founder of BLM Greater New York, said toward Mr. Penny, it's a small world, buddy.
Several people gasped and court officers urged the group to keep moving.
Hawk spoke later to the media.
We need some black vigilantes.
That's right.
People want to jump up and choke us and kill us for being loud?
How about we do the same when they attempt to oppress us?
Here's the other co-founder of BLM New York.
People who keep asking, are we gonna riot?
Are we gonna protest?
Is that what's needed?
Do glass have to break?
Do cars have to burn for a black man to get justice in America?
We can't show up with peace.
We can't show up with facts.
We can't show up with evidence and witness after witness.
You give us nothing.
And then you asked us to love this country.
America hates black people, and we see it from that jury pool.