But the New York subway system has no tracks or stations in that world. It operates, rather, in a world where last year a homeless man named Martial Simon shoved a 40-year-old consultant, Michelle Go, off a Times Square subway platform into the path of an oncoming train, killing her instantly. There was no motive; the assailant and victim did not know each other. It would be hard to say, based on witness accounts, that Simon was poised to attack anyone or represented an imminent danger. One woman said that she had drawn away from Simon, fearful that he might push her. But apparently, she neither screamed nor called for the police. We can surmise that even if Simon’s demeanor struck some people on that subway platform as “off” or threatening, they responded as Bouie would have approved, with restraint and forbearance. ..

It is true, as Bouie says, that no one on Jordan Neely’s subway car had any way to know that he had been arrested 42 times, including at least four times for punching people, two of which occurred in the subway system. Nor could they have known that Neely was on “the ‘Top 50’ list,” which, the Times explained, is a “roster maintained by the city of . . . people living on the street whom officials consider most urgently in need of assistance and treatment.” Lacking such knowledge, Bouie contends, Neely’s fellow passengers were obligated to give him the benefit of the doubt.

It is also true, however, that the people sharing that midtown subway platform with Martial Simon had no way of knowing that he had served two prison terms for robbing taxi drivers at gunpoint. Or that a drug possession case against him had been dismissed in 2019 due to his mental state. Or that he had been homeless for nearly 20 years before he killed Michelle Go. Or that he had been hospitalized at least 20 times. Or that he had told a psychiatrist in 2017 that it was “just a matter of time” before he pushed a woman onto some train tracks.

[You’d better believe that this is exactly what Penny’s defense will point out to the jury, too. Was Penny supposed to wait for Neely to push someone onto the track, or to stab someone, or beat someone to death before intervening? Or are prosecutors setting up transit consumers to be prey for the predators and expect them to simply submit to their fates? The bigger question in this trial will be where these same prosecutors were during Neely’s crime spree in the city. — Ed]