The Marine hero who stopped a raging maniac from threatening and possibly murdering straphangers on a New York subway train had one concern: the safety of fellow passengers.
In a recently released video from his attorneys, Daniel Penny explained in detail why he restrained black subway marauder Jordan Neely in a chokehold. Neely died during the brief confrontation.
Penny said he isn’t a hero, despite what witnesses said, and that he wanted to protect fellow passengers because Neely clearly intended to harm them.
Manhattan‘s leftist prosecutor Alvin Bragg and his posse of prosecutors don’t see it that way. They charged Penny with second-degree manslaughter. Now Penny awaits a decision from a grand jury that will decide whether to indict him.
The Chokehold
Penny’s day turned south when a deranged Neely boarded an F train to Manhattan and breathed threats of violence.
Witnesses were unequivocal: Neely was out of control. He was dangerous. He was ready to harm someone.
“He said he had no food, he had no drink, that he was tired and doesn’t care if he goes to jail,” a passenger told the New York Post. “He started screaming all these things, took off his jacket, a black jacket that he had, and threw it on the ground.”
“He said, ‘I don’t care. I’ll take a bullet, I’ll go to jail’ because he would kill people on the train,” another woman told the reporter:
“He said, ‘I would kill a motherf—er. I don’t care. I’ll take a bullet. I’ll go to jail.’”
The retiree said Penny did not initially engage with Neely during the wild rant until things got out of hand and he felt the urge to step in.
“This gentleman, Mr. Penny, did not stand up,” the rider said. “Did not engage with the gentleman. He said not a word. It was all Mr. Neely that was … threatening the passengers. If he did not get what he wants.”
Knowing Neely could explode and kill someone, Penny stepped in, applied the chokehold, and sent the fuming crackpot to the Promised Land. Unintentionally, of course.
Cops had arrested Neely, a malevolent force who stalked the netherworld of subterranean travel, almost four dozen times for fare-beating, disorderly conduct, and drug crimes.
Two years ago, the stoned turnstile jumper attacked a 67-year-old woman. He broke her nose and fractured her orbital bone.
Penny Speaks
Those facts didn’t stop Bragg from trying to lynch Penny and turn the case into George Floyd, Part 2, but in any case Penny has explained exactly why he did what he did.
The East Village resident was on his way from school. It was an uneventful day … until Neely “stumbled” onto the train.
“He appeared to be on drugs. The doors closed, and he ripped his jacket off and … threw it at the people sitting down to my left,” Penny said. “I was listening to music at the time and he was yelling, so I took my headphones out to hear what he was yelling.”
Neely shouted “three main threats” to passengers that “he repeated over and over.”
“I’m gonna kill you,” Neely said, “I’m prepared to go to jail for life,” and “I’m willing to die.”
It was, Penny said, “a scary situation.” Neely was the taller man.
Penny “looked around and saw women and children. He was yelling in their faces, saying, saying these threats. I couldn’t just sit still.”
Though critics say Penny held Neely for 15 minutes, the former Marine said he applied the hold for “less than five minutes,” and that he was not trying to kill the deranged 30-year-old subway menace.
“Some people say I was trying to choke him to death, which is also not true,” Penny continued:
I was trying to restrain him. You can see in the video there’s a clear rise and fall of his chest, indicating that he’s breathing. I’m trying to restrain him from being able to carry out the threats.
And then some people say that this was about race, which is absolutely ridiculous. I didn’t see a black man threatening passengers. I saw a man threatening passengers, a lot of whom were people of color.
As well, a black man helped Penny restrain Neely.
Indeed, a few days after the unfortunate fatality, “a woman of color came out and called me a hero.”
Passengers were “terrified,” Penny averred.
“I knew I had to act,” he said:
And I acted in a way that would protect the other passengers, protect myself, and protect Mr. Neely. I used this hold to restrain him and I did this by leaving my hand on top of his head to control his body. You could see in the video there’s a clear rise and fall of his chest, indicating that he was still breathing. And I’m calibrating my grip based on the force that he’s exerting.… I was trying to keep him on the ground until the police came.
I was praying that the police would come and take this situation over. I didn’t want to be put in that situation but I couldn’t just sit still and let him carry out these threats.
Penny surrendered to the city’s anarcho-tyranny on May 12. He faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted. A news report said Penny is prepared to testify before the grand jury.
