Rick Chow’s Record Was Hidden. Jordan Neely’s Was Front-Page News.

Two cases, one question: whose past gets used against them?

Cyrus Carmack-Belton.via Rep. Todd Rutherford

Cyrus Carmack-Belton was 14 years old when Rick Chow shot him in the back and killed him. Chow claimed he fired to protect his son.

But Chow had a history one the jury that acquitted him never got to hear.

Before Cyrus, Chow had already shot a man in the leg over a $6 item. He’d fired six shots at a car over stolen beer. Reports point to an even earlier incident where he fired at fleeing thieves. He was never charged in any of them. And at a pretrial hearing, a judge granted the defense’s motion to keep all of it out of the courtroom. The jurors weighing whether Chow’s fear was “reasonable” were never told how quickly he’d reached for a gun before.

There was no outrage about that. No deep dive. No moral panic.

Now compare that to Jordan Neely. When Neely died at the hands of Daniel Penny on a New York subway, his past was pulled into public view almost immediately his record, his struggles, his history and used to soften the killing. There, the past mattered. There, the details were front and center.

Jordan Neely was choked to death on the F train.Juan Vazquez

So which is it?

Does a person’s past actions matter or do they only matter when they can be used to excuse killing certain people?

Because this isn’t how justice is supposed to work. It looks like a system that decides whose history gets buried and whose history gets weaponized, depending on who ended up dead.

Explain that.

I break down stories like this three nights a week on The Tim Black Show — live Monday, Wednesday & Friday at 9:30 PM ET on YouTube, X, and Facebook.

“Lies are safe. Truth is dangerous. Stay Dangerous.”