Vigilante for some, murderer for others: a 24-year-old former Marine who carried out a fatal chokehold to an African-American homeless man in the New York subway last Monday, was heard by the authorities but remained free Friday night. While the mayor of the megalopolis calls for calm, a grand jury could be seized next week by prosecutors, according to the ABC channel, to decide if there is grounds to indict the one that the american media have identified as Daniel Penny.

The justice of New York investigates Thursday the death of a homeless known in the city, after an altercation on May 1 in the subway with passengers, one of whom would have strangled him, a news item filmed and which shocks the New York left. Jordan Neely, 30, who had acquired a small celebrity by imitating in the street the legend of music Michael Jackson (1958-2009), was the victim of a "homicide" by "compression" in the neck, told AFP the forensic medicine of New York.

Fear of passengers

Alerted by passengers and a video on social networks of an incident in the subway, the police had found Monday afternoon that a thirty-year-old African-American had lost "consciousness". He was taken to hospital and died shortly after, according to an email from law enforcement.

The five-minute video (warning, the images are shocking), obtained by AFP, shows the victim on the ground in a subway car, another man -- a 24-year-old Marine Corps soldier according to media reports -- lying behind to restrain him and squeeze his upper body. Other passengers standing above the two men appear taken aback.

A witness told AFP that Jordan Neely, who appears to be mentally ill, burst into the car, shouting at passengers and demanding food or drink. Police briefly questioned the suspect in the chokehold, and it is up to the New York State Attorney General for the borough of Manhattan to decide whether to prosecute criminally.

"As part of our ongoing rigorous investigation, we will review the forensic report, all available photos and videos, identify and interview as many witnesses as possible," a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said in an email Thursday.

A "murder", for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Jordan Neely imitated Michael Jackson in the streets of midtown Manhattan, where he lived, and had been arrested dozens of times including for disturbance on the public road, according to the press.

In a megalopolis of 8.5 million inhabitants with abysmal socio-economic inequalities and which does not know what to do with tens of thousands of homeless people often suffering from psychiatric disorders, the left has stepped up to the plate.

The Democratic congresswoman for New York, in the House of Representatives in Washington, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, wrote on Twitter that Jordan Neely had been the victim of a "murder".

New York City Council President Adrienne Adams denounced in a statement "the double standards faced by black people and people of color."

Further to the right of the Democratic Party, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, also African-American and a former police captain, told CNN that "any loss of life is tragic" but that "much of what happened remains unknown."

Dave Giffen, of the Coalition for the Homeless, denounced "the indifference of the municipality to the lives of homeless people who have psychiatric disorders". Rallies are planned in New York on Thursday night, Friday and Saturday to push Manhattan prosecutors to prosecute the alleged perpetrator.

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