Just One Day

 El Salvador would like us all to know that they have gone a full year without a murder. Three hundred sixty-five days without a homicide. President Nayib Bukele attributes all this lack of death to a crackdown on gangs and a yearlong "war on crime." Sixty-eight thousand suspected gang members were rounded up, arrested without warrants, and crammed into overcrowded prisons. Constitutional rights were ignored in order to create a year without murder. 

At least that's what the former night club owner who is now President of El Salvador would like us to believe. Maybe all those suspected gang members would have something to say about it. Of course no one seems interested in letting that happen. 

Which made me think of Jordan Neely. Mister Neely was choked to death on a New York City subway train on the first of May. A fellow passenger put him in a chokehold when he started, or continued, to act "erratically." The chokehold was maintained for several minutes until Jordan Neely's body went limp. And he was no longer behaving erratically. He was behaving dead. This one-man crackdown was accomplished by a former Marine who, after some discussion, was arrested and charged with second degree manslaghter. There will be much debate over the next few months about the Constitutional Rights of both of these individiuals. What is certain is that New York City will have to work a little harder on this "no murder" challenge. Here in America we are having a doozy of a time trying to go more than a day without one of us killing another. We're doing it on subway trains and shoppin malls and schools and birthday parties and the beat goes on. 

And on. 

In case you're wondering, I don't think El Salvador is murder-free either. I don't expect that "good samaritans" strangling homeless people on subway trains is going to solve anything either. Just a day though? Just one day?