I wanted to write a few words about the murder of Jordan Neely. Because of my martial arts background I think I’m uniquely qualified to write about it among the front pagers. Cole quote tweeted this:
— John Cole (@Johngcole) May 3, 2023
I recommend the whole thread that Cole is quote tweeting, but let me copy and paste below what I texted Cole with a couple of additions, which will be in italics:
I teach the lateral vascular restraint and its counter as an aikido instructor. I’m also the demonstration dummy when Saotome Sensei and my more senior colleagues teach it at seminars and in classes. This is because I have a 19 inch neck and because I know how to protect myself if it is applied. When I teach it, I teach specifically that you must not hold it for more than four seconds if it is applied correctly because after four seconds you risk killing the person you’re trying to subdue. This is because you’re basically making the body think it is having a stroke and if you apply it too long you actually cause one/the equivalent of one.
When I lived in Scotland and worked as a bouncer I’ve applied it in a real life situation where I was defending other people from someone who was drunk and violent. I honestly didn’t think I had it locked in properly and I’d never actually applied it before. It was just the fastest and simplest way to get control of the guy’s head. Before I clamped down on his carotid and jugular – hence the name of lateral vascular restraint – I told the guy to stop struggling and I’d release him. He didn’t, so I locked it in and I started to count out loud: “One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand” while gently lowering him to the ground. At four one thousand I released the hold, he was out, I checked his pulse, put him in the recovery position, we called the constables and for an ambulance, and I said “FUCK ME!!! IT WORKED!!” The drunk guy I’d rendered unconscious was fine. He came to before the ambulance arrived and they took him off to sober up.
That the guy in New York held it for 15 minutes means he either didn’t have it applied right and wound up asphyxiating Neely or if he did have it clamped on the vessels on each side of the neck he was trying to kill him. Given that Neely is reported to have struggled, my guess it is the former. And that means Jordan Neely was slowly asphyxiated to death. Regardless, holding this for fifteen minutes is way beyond the pale.
Either way this is murder!
A few people here know I had a horrendous April. Fewer still know the grim details and those two helped me make it through, as did another close friend I’ve known most of my adult life, and one of the most special people I have been fortunate to also know almost my entire adult life. I was a raw exposed nerve and I was barely holding it together. I lost it at home a couple of times. The only thing at risk here was my temperpedic mattress, which I used as a pummeling target. But I was very close to completely losing it in public at least once.
Had that happened I could’ve very well been Jordan Neely! There but for the grace of a Deity or Deities or the Universe or what have you go I. And frankly there but for the patience and compassion of four or five very, very special people to whom I owe debts I can never repay go I!
No one should be at risk of being murdered by a poorly trained mixed martial arts wannabe or anyone else because they’re having a bad day or their worst day. If the guy who murdered Jordan Neely isn’t held accountable, and given the NYPD is conducting the investigation I’m not holding my breath, this will be moral insult added to the moral injury of Neely’s murder!
Open thread!
A Few Words About the Murder of Jordan NeelyPost + Comments (68)