Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough slammed “progressives” for passing “laws that allow homelessness” amid a national “mental health” crisis in reaction to the not guilty verdict for Daniel Penny, who was accused of having “recklessly” caused the death of a homeless man.
The decision on Monday came after the 12-member jury informed the judge on Friday that they were deadlocked over whether Penny caused Jordan Neely’s death by holding him in a chokehold for six minutes in May 2023.
Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with a history of mental illness, was allegedly acting erratically on a New York City subway train before the fatal encounter. A bystander recorded Penny, a former Marine, wrestling Neely to the ground and restraining him as other passengers watched.
As the MSNBC panel debated the verdict on Tuesday’s show, Scarborough concluded that more money should be spent to help individuals with mental health issues and that “bad things happen” when those people are abandoned to homelessness.
The mental health system in this country, again, is just grossly insufficient. Whether you’re talking about New York, whether you’re talking about Florida, whether you’re talking about California, you have people walking about on the streets that have mental health issues.
And the fact some Progressives have said let’s pass laws that allow homelessness… You look at San Francisco, you look at Los Angeles. As we’ve said all along, there’s nothing compassionate about that. There’s nothing Progressive about that, leaving people with mental health problems on the street, no!
We need to spend more money as a society taking care of those who have mental health challenges and not just say, yeah, you can live on the streets. Bad things happen.
Watch above on MSNBC.
