I looked up and saw another man responding angrily and in a physically threatening way. I didn’t think too much of it until I heard someone else raising his voice in response. He appeared to be homeless and was vocally antagonizing people. ![]() I am determined that I will put myself in harm’s way rather than letting something like that happen in front of me.Ī few years later, I was seated near a door when I heard a man start raising his voice. I’ve had that story in my head every time I ride the Metro. Fellow passengers watched in terror as his murderer stabbed or cut him 30 to 40 times, then robbed several of them before getting off the train. I rode the Washington, D.C., Metro for years, and I vividly remember the brutal knife murder of a 24-year-old man in 2015. Helen explains why her sympathy for Neely coexists with a belief that fearing him was reasonable: His life stirs my sense of humanity and reminds me that there are too many people navigating this world with a broken compass, navigating their way around great sorrow, loss, and the riddle we are all faced with: the purpose, meaning, and value of our lives. My purpose here is to push all polemical chatter aside and simply say a prayer for him and ask for a moment of silence. However much he became troublesome to others, he did not deserve the death that found him in that subway car. I don’t wish to romanticize him, but to pay respects to his life, an easily forgotten cipher in the big city. ![]() It’s possible that his whole life was an exercise in running away from the death of his mother. He could be scary, threatening, and, at times, violent. Neely is a person with a tragic past who ended up being too crazy to take care of himself or make use of the help he was offered. While I feel righteous anger and could easily rail against a host of contributors to this outcome, my sadness is deeper than any other reaction. ![]() Neely’s death alone disturbs me more than anything else.
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