NEW YORK (NEXSTAR) — A Marine veteran who held an agitated subway rider in a chokehold was acquitted Monday in his death that became a prism for differing views on public safety, bravery and vigilantism.
A Manhattan jury resolved the case Daniel Penny for negligent homicide Jordan NeelyDeath in 2023. A more stern one The manslaughter charge was dismissed last week because the jury was deadlocked on the matter.
Penny, who had shown little expression during the trial, smiled briefly as the verdict was read. The courtroom erupted in both applause and anger, and Neely’s father and two supporters were escorted out after an audible reaction. Another person also left, crying.
“It really, really hurts,” Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, said outside the courthouse. “I had enough of it. The system is rigged.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the Democrat whose office filed the case, said prosecutors had “pursued the facts and evidence from beginning to end” and respected the ruling.
There was no immediate comment from lawyers about Penny, who rushed to a waiting car after the verdict. The anonymous jury that had began deliberations on TuesdayHe was escorted out of court to a van.
Penny’s lawyers had said so to protect yourself and other subway passengers by a volatile, mentally ill man who made disturbing comments and gestures.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference that “Jordan did not have to die,” but added that he joined District Attorney Bragg in saying that “I respect the process” and the jury’s decision Basis of facts and factual evidence heard in court.
“We have a mental health system that is broken when someone goes through that system repeatedly; “This is a sign of failure and we need help in Albany and on the City Council,” Adams said. “We cannot sit back and mourn the loss of someone trapped in the system if we don’t take action every day.”
Mayor Adams also made it clear that he expects New Yorkers to continue to act if they believe they and others around them are under threat. On a radio show in behind schedule November, Adams said Penny was “doing what we should have done as a city” when someone aboard a subway train “talked about hurting people, killing people.”
The case exacerbated many American fault lines, including race, politics, crime, urban life, mental illness and homelessness. Neely was black. Penny is white.
There were sometimes Dueling demonstrations outside the courthouse, including on Monday, when chants could be heard through the courtroom window before the verdict was announced. High-profile Republican politicians portrayed Penny as a hero while prominent Democrats attended Neely’s funeral.
Penny, 26, served in the Marines for four years and then studied architecture.
Neely, 30, was a former Subway performer with a tragic life story: When he was a teenager, his mother was killed and stuffed in a suitcase.
As a younger man, Neely paid tribute to Michael Jackson – complete with moonwalks – on the city’s streets and subways. But Neely also struggled with mental illness after losing his mother, whose boyfriend was convicted of murdering her.
He was subsequently diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia, was repeatedly hospitalized, and consumed the synthetic cannabinoid K2 and found it negatively affecting his thinking and behavior, according to medical records viewed at trial. The drug was in his body when he died.
Neely told a doctor in 2017 that his homelessness, living in poverty and having to “dig through trash for food” left him feeling so hopeless that he sometimes thought about killing himself, hospital records show.
About six years later, on May 1, 2023, he boarded a subway train under Manhattan, threw his jacket on the ground and declared that he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t care whether he died or went to prison, witnesses said. Some told emergency responders that he tried to attack people or that he suggested he would harm drivers, and several said they were afraid.
Neely was unarmed, had nothing but a muffin in his pocket and did not touch any passengers. One said he made lunge movements that alarmed her enough to protect her five-year-old from him.
Penny came up behind Neely, grabbed him by the neck, threw him to the ground and “knocked him out,” as the veteran police officer at the scene said.
Video of the passengers showed that Neely tapped and pointed at an audience member’s leg at one point during the approximately six-minute break. Later he was briefly given one arm free. But he stood there for almost a minute before Penny let him go.
“He’s dying,” an unseen bystander said in a video. “Let him go!”
A witness who stepped in to hold Neely’s arms testified that he ordered Penny to release the man, although Penny’s lawyers noted that the witness’s story had changed significantly over time.
Penny told investigators shortly after the encounter that Neely had threatened to kill people and that the chokehold was an attempt to “de-escalate” the situation until police could arrive. The veteran said he lasted so long because Neely squirmed regularly.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I’m just trying to stop him from hurting someone else. He threatens people. That’s what we learn in the Marine Corps,” Penny told detectives.
However, one of Penny’s Marine Corps instructors testified that the veteran had committed abuse a choke hold technique he had been taught.
Prosecutors said Penny had reacted far too forcefully to someone he perceived as a danger, not to a person. Prosecutors also argued that the need to protect passengers quickly faded when the train doors opened at the next station, seconds after Penny took action.
Although Penny himself told police he used “a stranglehold” or “strangle hold,” one of his attorneys, Steven Raiser, described it as a Marine-learned chokehold that was “modified into a simple civilian restraint.” Defense attorneys claimed Penny didn’t apply consistent enough pressure to kill Neely.
In contradiction to a Findings of the city coronera pathologist hired by the defense said Neely did not die from the chokehold but by the combined effects of K2, schizophrenia, his fighting and restraint, and a blood disorder that can lead to fatal complications with exertion.
penny didn’t testifybut several of him Relatives, friends and his fellow Marines did – describing him as an upstanding, patriotic and sensitive man.
The involuntary manslaughter charge would have required proof that Penny recklessly caused Neely’s death. Involuntary manslaughter is a stern “criminal conduct” that involves not being aware of such a risk. Both charges were felonies and carried a prison sentence.
While the criminal trial was taking place, Neely’s father filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Penny.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
