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“A former U.S. Marine sergeant who used a chokehold to restrain Jordan Neely, a homeless man, on a New York City subway car was found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide on Monday in Neely's death. Daniel Penny, 26, has said he never intended to kill Neely, a 30-year-old man with a history of mental illness, during their encounter on an uptown train…
“Prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office did not dispute that Neely was loud, angry and threatening as he boarded the train, shouting that he was hungry, thirsty and wanted to be sent back to jail. But they told jurors that Penny, who grabbed Neely from behind with an arm around Neely's neck and brought him to the floor, used deadly physical force without justification and for far longer than necessary.” Reuters
Here’s our prior coverage of the incident. The Flip Side
The left is disappointed by the verdict, and worries that it will lead to further vigilante violence.
“Penny’s defense team paid an expert witness, Dr Satish Chundru, nearly $100,000 to testify at the trial… By the time Chundru took the stand, the facts of Neely’s death were clear… Penny held Neely in the chokehold for about six minutes, including a full 50 seconds after Neely had gone limp…
“Both common sense and medical science would dictate precisely what the medical examiner found. Neely’s cause of death was asphyxiation due to Penny’s chokehold. But that’s not what Dr Chundru determined. According to Chundru, Neely died of a mix of factors: his schizophrenia, drugs in his system, and the fact that he was a carrier of a genetic trait called sickle cell. ‘This is not a chokehold death,’ Chundru testified…
“There is simply no good scientific evidence that the sickle cell trait plays any role in choking deaths. The American Society of Hematology even warns that deaths attributed to sickle cell crisis ‘must be viewed with profound skepticism’.”
Moustafa Bayoumi, The Guardian
“I understand that people do not want to feel uncomfortable on public transportation. I also think Penny, or anyone else on the subway, could have acted in ways to de-escalate the situation that did not involve a choke hold… Neely’s death also demonstrates a failure by police to act in a way that could have saved his life…
“Despite finding Neely not breathing when they arrived, police officers did not give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and took minutes to begin chest compressions. In testimony, Sgt. Carl Johnson said he didn’t tell his officers to give Neely mouth-to-mouth, fearing they would contract AIDS (which is not transmissible by saliva) or another disease… It’s hard not to think about how these moments could have played out differently had a health care professional been the one to answer the call.”
Sara Pequeño, USA Today
“In a police interview following Neely’s death, Penny referred to Neely as ‘just a crackhead’ who was ‘acting like a lunatic’. Experts say Penny’s acquittal fits into a longstanding pattern of how white vigilante crime is treated in the US, with white killers celebrated and Black victims denigrated. ‘In situations where people of color have tried to defend themselves, it’s a whole different result,’ said Mark Brodin, a professor of law at Boston College Law School…
“‘It’s supposed to be a ‘reasonable fear’, but jurors don’t hear the ‘reasonable’ part of it,’ said Brodin. ‘They think, ‘That could’ve been me on that subway. I’m glad he choked that man to death after six minutes of strangling him.’’…
“[Dave Giffen, the executive director at the New York-based Coalition for the Homeless stated] ‘If what we’re saying is that it’s okay to attack somebody who’s acting in a way that makes you feel nervous, then the city is descending into chaos.’”
Gloria Oladipo, The Guardian
The right praises the verdict and criticizes the decision to prosecute Penny.
The right praises the verdict and criticizes the decision to prosecute Penny.
“As trial witnesses testified, they were frightened as Neely ranted that ‘someone is going to die today’ and that he was ‘willing to die and go to jail.’… As a strict matter of law, Penny’s actions were permissible under the doctrine of justification, which recognizes that people under a threat of force have the right to defend themselves and others…
“Apart from the legal reasonableness of his actions, prosecuting him set a terrible precedent. In a city of about 9 million people with fewer than 34,000 cops… the vast majority of violent crime occurs without police on the scene. If capable, valorous civilians are unwilling to intervene, others are more vulnerable to attack. Even with Penny’s acquittal, Bragg’s prosecution will make good people think twice before coming to the aid of helpless people…
“There was no evidence that Penny was racially motivated. In fact, many of the passengers he protected — including some who gave testimony helpful to him at trial — were black and just as frightened of Neely as any reasonable person would be. The passengers who provided Penny with some assistance in subduing Neely were also non-white.”
The Editors, National Review
“Sixty years ago, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered outside her apartment building in Queens. The New York Times infamously reported that while 38 people either saw or heard the attack, none called the police or came to her aid. Though the Times story was later found to have been greatly exaggerated, Kitty Genovese became a metaphor for a cold, uncaring city where people don’t want to risk getting involved…
“Daniel Penny could have looked away. But he didn’t. Instead he came to the aid of fellow passengers who were terrified by Jordan Neely… Today it’s common to lament the state of American manhood, that men can’t be counted on. Yet when a good man does step forward, he is treated—literally, in New York—as a criminal.”
William McGurn, Wall Street Journal
“In 2019, Neely punched Filemon Castillo Baltazar in the head as the 65-year-old waited for a subway in Greenwich Village. In June 2021, he walloped Anne Mitcheltree in the head inside a deli in the East Village; she was in her late sixties. In November 2021, Neely broke the nose and fractured the eye socket of a 67-year-old woman… In June 2019, Neely banged on the door of a subway ticket agent’s booth and threatened to kill her. Yet Neely was still allowed his freedom…
“If one follows the prosecution’s logic, New York’s government should have stood trial. If Penny was reckless regarding the risk that his restraint of Neely would allegedly cause Neely’s death, the state and city have been worse than reckless in their disregard for citizen safety. It is not just a possibility or probability that in the near future, another mentally ill drug addict will assault an innocent civilian—it is a certainty.”
Heather Mac Donald, City Journal
