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**Is Self-Defense Becoming Illegal?**

Is Self-Defense Becoming Illegal?

_Authored by Joshua Philipp via The Epoch Times,_ (https://www.theepochtimes.com/is-self-defense-becoming-illegal_5273007.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge)

If someone you love were threatened, or physically attacked, do you have the right to defend them? **And even more so, when police are being defunded and when criminals are being released on the streets, do you have a right to protect yourself?**

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**Do you have to just let things happen?**

Must you just watch while innocent people are victimized by criminals?

**Well, that’s the question currently on trial in New York.**

That’s the case of Jordan Neely.

Now, if you read most news outlets (https://gothamist.com/news/who-was-jordan-neely-friends-recall-sweet-kid-talented-performer-killed-in-subway-chokehold) on the left, you’ll hear the **30-year-old black man was a street performer and Michael Jackson impersonator**.

You’ll also hear that his friends said he was a **sweet kid,** and that he later suffered from mental disabilities and became homeless.

If you read news outlets on the right, you’ll hear that **he was arrested 42 times between 2013 and 2021.**

In 2015, he was convicted of **trying to kidnap a 7-year-old girl** in Inwood, Queens, and was sentenced to four months in jail. Then, in 2021, he was **arrested for punching a 67-year-old woman in the face** as she exited a subway train in New York’s East Village, breaking her nose and fracturing her orbital bone.

He pleaded guilty, and while facing 15 months in an alternative-to-incarceration program, he skipped his court date, and had a warrant out for his arrest since February.

**Both sides of Neely’s story are true.** He was a talented dancer who suffered from mental problems, and had become a criminal menace. The New York justice system repeatedly let him off the hook. Even outside of his arrests, people were posting online (https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1654949802235555840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) about personal experiences of being threatened or attacked by Neely.

And then, on May 1, Neely was allegedly threatening (https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?id=tag%3Areuters.com%2C2023%3Anewsml_WD205212052023RP1%3A4&search=all%3A%22tag%3Areuters.com%2C2023%3Anewsml_WD205212052023RP1%22) passengers on a New York subway car until a former U.S. Marine intervened; he restrained Neely with a chokehold while two other men helped subdue him. After Neely lost consciousness, the men placed Neely in a recovery position, and yet, Neely died.

**Nobody was initially charged. Video of the incident, which was limited to when Neely had already been restrained, was quickly picked up by political actors to play into the country’s race narratives.**

Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) of New York wrote (https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1653880169516466178?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) on Twitter a couple days later that “Jordan Neely was murdered.” She claimed he was “houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor.”

**She said it was “disgusting” that the man who allegedly killed Neely wasn’t charged.**

Others on the far left came forward also to criticize (https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/ny-dems-turn-other-over-192029567.html) the case as being about race, and to suggest that justice was needed, although, even among Democrats, not everyone was in agreement.

**The political attacks sounded like a dog whistle to radical groups in New York.** There were no major protests like those that were common with the Black Lives Matter summer riots a few years back, although a few dozen protesters went viral when they jumped (https://nypost.com/2023/05/06/protestors-clash-with-nypd-over-jordan-neely-chokehold-death/) on the subway tracks and forced a Q train to slam on its brakes.

It also turned out the protesters weren’t grassroots protesters. They were with an organization called Voices of Community Activists and Leaders, which has funding from billionaires including Meta (https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/cor/820962378_201912_990_2021030217780020.pdf) CEO Mark Zuckerberg through (https://dailycaller.com/2023/05/08/mark-zuckerberg-george-soros-jordan-neely/) the FWD.us Education Fund, and radical left billionaire George Soros (https://dailycaller.com/2023/05/08/mark-zuckerberg-george-soros-jordan-neely/) through his Open Society Foundations.

It also turned out that the radical organization that staged the subway protest had previously teamed up in other protests with the Young Communist League of the Communist Party USA.

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