A more facts about Neely's violence and supposed intractability came out, that was what happened. Centrist liberals, alert against any error on the left, began questioning the whole idea that our system had neglected Neely—that if he was known to the city's outreach workers, and he'd passed in and out of treatment, he couldn't properly be called abandoned. The Times described his plea bargain in the assault case as "a carefully planned strategy between the city and his lawyers to allow him to get treatment and stay out of prison." Even if he did end up sick, filthy, and dead on the floor of a subway train, it wasn't quite right to say he'd been overlooked, was it?This element of that Times piece is amazing for two reasons:
1) The wording makes a plea deal sound like some sort of extreme benevolence when, you know, it's just a plea deal.
2) Entirely left out of the story is - and I can't even believe this one - the fact that while he did "stay out of prison" that was after he'd already been in jail for 15 months.
Gotta work hard to write around a point like that. It's deliberate.