TRAGEDY

Assault Victim Says He Wishes Jordan Neely Had Been in Rehab

Filemon Castillo Baltazar was allegedly punched in the head by Neely in 2019.

A man who was assaulted by Jordan Neely in 2019 is weighing on the subway attack—and he says he wishes the homeless man killed by an ex-Marine on Monday had’ve been in a rehab facility. Filemon Castillo Baltazar told the New York Daily News that he was waiting for a train in the Greenwich Village in 2019 when Neely approached him out of nowhere and punched him in the head, eventually leading Neely to be charged with assault in a case that has since been sealed. “He should have been in some rehab center,” Baltazar said, adding that he had seen Neely “looking for food in the garbage” multiple times before. Neely assaulted an elderly woman in a similar fashion in 2021, landing him in an alternative-to-incarceration program for 15 months. Baltazar said he didn’t know what to think of this week’s shocking incident but he believed the ex-Marine, identified by media outlets as Daniel Penny, “shouldn’t be punished.”