Adams wants to strengthen Kendra’s Law, tighten release standards for mentally ill after Neely death

Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday he wants to strengthen state law so the city can commit people suffering from severe mental illness for longer — after The Post exposed a hidden gap that allowed Jordan Neely to stroll out of court-mandated treatment less than three months before his death.

Adams’ call for Albany lawmakers to expand Kendra’s Law came in response to a Post report this week that found Neely — the troubled 30-year-old homeless man strangled to death on the subway — was able to check himself out of a mental health program he had been sent to as part of a plea deal in an assault case.

“People who are dealing with a severe mental health illness can’t make the determination [about] what kind of care they want,” Adams said at a press conference when asked about the nature of the case.

The mayor said he wants changes to Kendra’s Law — which lets the courts mandate outpatient treatment for people with serious mental illness — that would allow the city to get people into treatment who are considered a danger to themselves.

“We’re hoping we can get Kendra’s Law adjusted to give people the clear understanding that if this person is dealing with a major mental health illness where they can’t take care of themselves, and they’re a danger to themselves, that we’re allowed to keep them and give them the services they need,” Adams said.

The mayor also wants to raise the standards people must meet before they can sign themselves out of treatment facilities.

“It can’t be, ‘OK, I’m alright for this moment,’” Adams said. “No. It takes a while to know if you stabilize. That’s what we’re pushing for.”

The Post found that Neely had slipped through a loophole in New York law, which lets prosecutors push people into diversionary programs that offer treatment instead of prison, but gives courts and cops few tools to make sure those suffering from mental illness actually follow through with their assigned program.

Court records showed Neely agreed to such a program as part of a plea deal with Manhattan prosecutors that spared him prison time for a 2021 assault. But he apparently didn’t want to stay – and there was little anyone could do to stop him from signing himself out and disappearing.

A judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest the day after he left treatment. But by then it was too late and the former street performer, who had a long history of psychosis, was already gone.

Less than three months after Neely strolled out of the program, he lay dead on the floor of a subway car after former Marine Daniel Penny locked him in a fatal chokehold. Neely had been on a particularly explosive tirade before the confrontation, yelling and allegedly throwing trash at other subway riders.

Adams has frequently spoken about using Kendra’s Law — named for aspiring screenwriter Kendra Webdale, who died when a schizophrenic man pushed her in front of a Manhattan subway train in 1999 — to clear the subways of the mentally ill.

“Judges, do your job,” then-candidate Adams said during his mayoral campaign in May 2021. “It’s time to use Kendra’s law to deal with the mental health crisis that we’re seeing.”

A year after winning the election, Adams announced he’d dramatically expand the city’s powers to y to involuntarily commit New Yorkers with chronic and untreated mental illness.

City workers could now immediately hospitalize people who refuse treatment, even if they don’t pose a clear and present danger to themselves or others, he said in November.

Many have called for authorities to charge Penny, while others say the 24-year-old was just trying to protect himself and fellow straphangers from a threatening homeless man.

But those protesting outside City Hall on Thursday morning were unequivocally in favor of consequences for the young Queens man who once served as an infantry squad leader and water survival instructor in the military.

“He was murdered,” Marina Sanchez said of Neely. “Our systems in the City of New York failed Jordan Neely for 16 years.”

“I want us to understand what trauma looks like when you’re hungry, when you are sleep-deprived, when you’re thirsty, when you’re looking for a shelter, when you are looking for help,” said Crystal Hudson, who also pilloried Adams for failing to help needy New Yorkers.

“Everything we need, he says no to,” Hudson said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Anybody on that subway could’ve helped Jordan.”

Meanwhile, Democratic City Councilwoman Althea Stevens said Neely’s death wasn’t a murder – it was a “public lynching.”

“Each and every person who was on that subway car should also be charged with murder, because it’s unacceptable that we do not come and help our brothers in need,” she said. “This brother should be here. We failed him. Those people on that subway car failed him. I’m sick of it.”

Neely’s family has blamed authorities for letting him walk away from treatment.

“How do you tell someone ‘Listen, you need to go to a mental health facility,’ but you also give them the power to check themselves out?” Jordan’s uncle, Christopher Neely, told The Post.

Neely died on May 1 in what the city medical examiner has ruled a homicide.

Although Neely’s family has also called for Penny — who was questioned by the cops after the encounter and then released — to be locked up.

Penny’s attorneys have said he didn’t intend to kill Neely.

Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts