Justice democrats

Tensions ran high this week after Jordan Neely, a homeless street performer with a record of violence, was killed by Daniel Penney, a twenty-four-year-old Marine. Penney placed Neely in a chokehold on a New York City subway train. The usual suspects, such as Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, swung into action, calling the incident “murder” and a “lynching” respectively. Conservative media was alive with dire warnings of potential violent protests in response to this death of a black man at the hands of a white man. But a funny thing happened on the way to the riots: they didn’t occur. So what makes this situation so different from incidents of racially tinged violence in the recent past?

Preventing crime and punishing offenders is primarily the responsibility of local authorities. They have no greater obligation to the citizens who elected them and who fund the government. It is up to local police, supervised by political leaders and subject to the law themselves, to provide a safe environment for citizens to go about their lives, pursuing their own goals in peace and security. It is up to local politicians to ensure that police are adequately funded and properly trained. It is up to local prosecutors to follow up all justified arrests and prosecute offenders when the evidence is adequate. When police overstep their limits, prosecutors should pursue them too. The goal is a safe environment, subject to the rule of law.