From the AF Times:
“Marine Corps veteran
acquitted in NYC subway chokehold death”
A Marine veteran who used a
chokehold on an agitated subway rider was acquitted on Monday in a death that
became a prism for differing views about public safety, valor and vigilantism. A
Manhattan jury cleared Daniel Penny of criminally negligent homicide in Jordan
Neely’s 2023 death. A more serious manslaughter charge was dismissed last week
because the jury deadlocked on that count. Penny, who had shown little
expression during the trial, briefly smiled as the verdict was read. While
celebrating later with his attorneys, he said he felt “great.” Both applause
and anger erupted in the courtroom, and Neely's father and two supporters were
ushered out after audibly reacting. Another person also left, wailing with
tears. “It really, really hurts,” Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, said outside
the courthouse. “I had enough of this. The system is rigged."
The case amplified many American
fault lines, among them 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. High-profile
Republican politicians portrayed Penny as a hero while prominent Democrats
attended Neely’s funeral. Penny’s attorneys argued he was protecting himself
and other subway passengers from a volatile, mentally ill man who was making
alarming remarks and gestures. Penny “finally got the justice he deserved,” one
of his lawyers, Thomas Kenniff, said while celebrating the outcome with him at
a downtown Manhattan pub.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin
Bragg, a Democrat whose office brought the case, said prosecutors “followed the
facts and the evidence from beginning to end” and respect the verdict. The
anonymous jury, which had started deliberating Tuesday, was escorted out of
court to a van. Andre Zachery, father of Jordan Neely, at a press conference
outside the criminal court Monday in New York. During the criminal trial,
Zachery filed a wrongful death suit against Penny. (Stefan Jeremiah/AP)
Penny, 26, served four years in
the Marines and went on to study architecture.
Neely, 30, was a sometime subway
performer with a tragic life story: His mother was killed and stuffed in a
suitcase when he was a teenager. As a younger man, Neely did Michael Jackson
tributes — 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 subsequently was diagnosed with
depression and schizophrenia, was repeatedly hospitalized, and used the
synthetic cannabinoid K2 and realized it negatively affected his thinking and
behavior, according to medical records seen at the trial. The drug was in his
system when he died. Neely told a doctor in 2017 that being homeless, living in
poverty and having to “dig through the garbage” for food made him feel so
hopeless that he sometimes thought of killing himself, hospital records show. About
six years later, he boarded a subway under Manhattan on May 1, 2023, hurled his
jacket onto the floor, and declared that he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t
care if he died or went to jail, witnesses said. Some told 911 operators that
he tried to attack people or indicated he’d harm riders, and several testified
that they were afraid. Neely was unarmed, with nothing but a muffin in his
pocket, and didn’t touch any passengers. One said he made lunging movements
that alarmed her enough that she shielded her 5-year-old from him. Penny came
up behind Neely, grabbed his neck, took him to the floor and “put him out,” as
the veteran told police at the scene. Passengers’ video showed that at one
point during the roughly six-minute hold, Neely tapped an onlooker’s leg and
gestured to him. Later, he briefly got an arm free. But he went still nearly a
minute before Penny released him. “He’s dying,” an unseen bystander said in one
video. “Let him go!”
A witness who stepped in to hold
down Neely’s arms testified that he told Penny to free the man, though Penny’s
lawyers noted the witness’ story changed significantly over time. Penny told
detectives shortly after the encounter that Neely threatened to kill people and
the chokehold was an attempt to “de-escalate” the situation until police could
arrive. The veteran said he held on so long because Neely periodically tried to
break loose. “I wasn’t trying to injure him. I’m just trying to keep him from
hurting anyone else. He’s threatening people. That’s what we learn in the
Marine Corps,” Penny told the detectives. However, one of Penny’s Marine Corps
instructors testified that the veteran misused a chokehold technique he’d been
taught. Prosecutors said Penny reacted far too forcefully to someone he
perceived as a peril, not a person. Prosecutors also argued that any need to
protect passengers quickly ebbed when the train doors opened at the next
station, seconds after Penny took action. Although Penny told police he’d used
“a choke” or “a chokehold,” one of his lawyers, Steven Raiser, cast it as a
Marine-taught chokehold “modified as a simple civilian restraint.” The defense
lawyers contended Penny didn’t consistently apply enough pressure to kill
Neely.
Contradicting a city medical
examiner’s finding, a pathologist hired by the defense said Neely died not from
the chokehold but from the combined effects of K2, schizophrenia, his struggle
and restraint, and a blood condition that can lead to fatal complications
during exertion. Penny did not testify, but relatives, friends and fellow
Marines did — describing him as an upstanding, patriotic and empathetic man. The
manslaughter charge would have required proving that Penny recklessly caused
Neely's death. Criminally negligent homicide involves engaging in serious
“blameworthy conduct” while not perceiving such a risk. Both charges were
felonies punishable by prison time. During the criminal trial, Neely’s father
filed a wrongful death suit against Penny.
^ This is a complicated case
between a troubled man who could have hurt others and an Ex-Marine who could
have thought he was helping to save the people on the Subway. ^
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