Jordan Neely was on NYC’s ‘Top 50 list’ of homeless people with urgent need for help before subway death
Jordan Neely, the homeless man choked to death on the subway last week, was reportedly listed on a city roster of people on the streets who desperately needed help.
Referred to colloquially as the “Top 50” list, the internal catalogue held by the city’s Department of Homeless Services details which people are cycling in and out of homeless shelters and mental health treatment centers, a source told The Post Monday.
The agency and its nonprofit service providers flag cases that need close attention, which helps them keep track of those in dire need of assistance.
“There’s a group of folks that providers are concerned about, and there’s frequent conferencing related to that material,” the source said.
Neely — a 30-year-old former street performer who died last Monday after former Marine Daniel Penny, 24, put him in a chokehold — was on that list, sources told The Post.
He’d been taken to the hospital on several occasions, according to the New York Times, which along with CNN first reported that Neely was on the list. Sometimes the hospital trips were voluntary, other times not.
The list has no ranking, and the DHS doesn’t look at a set number of people, nor is there a connection to how violent or how much of a problem the homeless person is, an agency spokesperson said Monday when asked about the list.
The agency tries to find those who are hardest to reach and particularly vulnerable – for instance, older people who may have lived on the streets for decades, the rep added.
The DHS does not share the list with other agencies due to privacy concerns, according to sources. And it’s not clear if Mayor Eric Adams’ much-vaunted subway safety teams have access to it.
But non-profit teams on the street often run into the same people again and again, so they have a good idea who is most at-risk – regardless of what the roster says, sources said.
It’s unclear if the list actually makes a difference in stopping the cycle of treatment, arrest and homelessness.
It didn’t seem to make a difference for Neely, who police and eyewitnesses said was yelling at subway riders and throwing trash on an F train in Manhattan May 1 before Penny subdued him with a well-known grappling technique called a rear naked choke.
“He started screaming in an aggressive manner,” one witness, Juan Alberto Vazquez, recalled to The Post.
“He said he had no food, he had no drink, that he was tired and doesn’t care if he goes to jail,” Vazquez said, adding that Neely pulled off his black jacket and threw it to the floor, prompting subway riders to retreat to the far end of the car.
The city medical examiner has ruled Neely’s death a homicide. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is investigating and sources said prosecutors will impanel a grand jury to determine whether Penny should be charged with a crime.
Penny’s legal team is arguing that their client acted in self-defense — Neely was threatening him and the other passengers, his attorneys said, and Penny never intended to harm him.
Neely — who sank into a deep depression after his stepfather brutally murdered his mom in 2007 — had a lengthy history of mental illness that his family said was never treated correctly.
He also had a plethora of run-ins with the cops, although there was no way for Penny to know that at the time. And his frequent outbursts of random violence led to at least one lengthy stay in jail.
Neely randomly punched Anne Mitcheltree in June 2021 inside the S.K. Deli Market on 2nd Avenue in the East Village, which left the 65-year-old woman with swelling and substantial pain.
“They told me, ‘We have him, he’s in custody, we’re going to press charges,’” Mitcheltree, a creative arts therapist with New York City Health + Hospitals for over 40 years, told The Post.
“I thought the judge would have forced him to take psychiatric meds, but it seems like he bounced out.”
A few months later, he belted a 67-year-old woman in the East Village, police sources said.
The November attack knocked the woman over and left her with a broken nose, fractured orbital bone and bruising, swelling and substantial pain, according to charging documents.
The assault landed Neely in Rikers Island for more than a year.
In total, he had more than 40 arrests on his long rap sheet and about 43 calls for an “aided case,” which means someone is sick, injured or mentally ill, sources said.
