A year later, a passenger on the F train where Jordan Neely died is still reeling

A year after Johnny Grima witnessed Jordan Neely’s body lying on the floor of an uptown F train, he still feels guilty that he walked away.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t do anything to try to save his life,” said Grima, who was formerly homeless and is a longtime advocate for those living on New York City’s streets and in its shelters.

Grima didn’t know who Neely was on that day exactly a year ago. When the train stopped at the Broadway-Lafayette Street station, he stumbled into a commotion. Daniel Penny had Neely in a chokehold in another car on the train.

Neely, who was homeless and had mental illness, according to his friends and family, came to symbolize different things to people across the city and the nation. One one side, his name became a rallying cry for better treatment of New York City’s homeless and mentally ill residents. On the other, proponents for more policing and law and order celebrated the man who put him in a chokehold. The case eventually set off protests that led to arrests.

Grima joined the public outcry over Neely’s death, along with hundreds of New Yorkers, even as he was called to testify before the grand jury in Penny’s criminal case. He said police arrested him at a demonstration and the stress of it took a toll. He began taking antidepressants for the first time in his life.

“It really f—ed me up,” Grima said during an interview this week at the Broadway-Lafayette Street station, where he witnessed the moment of Neely’s death on May 1, 2023. “It really f—ed me up for a while.”

Neely was a well-known Michael Jackson impersonator who danced on subway cars and platforms across the city. Police said he was arrested multiple times in the years before his death. Neely’s loved ones said his mental health gradually deteriorated after his mother was strangled to death when he was 14, according to news reports.

Many details about what happened in the subway car in the moments before Neely died are still unknown to the…