Tag Archives: Jordan Neely

Good News From New York City

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On Monday, The New York Post reported:

A Manhattan jury has cleared Daniel Penny of criminal wrongdoing in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on a crowded subway — a caught-on-video killing that sparked fierce debate over the city’s mental health system and crime underground.

The panelists acquitted Penny of criminally negligent homicide — which could have put him behind bars for up to four years — in Neely’s chokehold death aboard a crowded uptown F train in May 2023.

Manslaughter, the top charge against Penny, was tossed on Friday after jurors twice said they couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict.

Jurors sided with Penny’s defense attorneys, who had argued that the Marine veteran was justified in rushing to protect his fellow subway straphangers when he subdued the erratic homeless man. The lawyers had also questioned whether there was sufficient evidence that the chokehold caused Neely’s death.

This is wonderful news. Basically, the story is that a heroic former Marine saved a subway car full of innocent travelers from possible serious harm at the hands of someone who belonged in a mental institution. I pray that if I ever ride the New York City subways again (I rode them to commute to school in the 1960’s), there will be someone like Daniel Penny on the train with me.

Some Very Rational Comments From Eric Adams

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The Daniel Penny trial continues in New York City. As you probably remember, Daniel Penny is being tried for the murder of Jordan Neely in a subway car. Neely was behaving strangely and threatening the passengers in the car when former Marine Daniel Penny put him in a strangle hold to restrain him and protect the other passengers.

On Thursday, Townhall reported:

Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams is publicly defending Daniel Penny and his heroic actions.

…Adams appeared on a November 30 episode of “The Rob Astorino Show,” where he praised Penny for “doing what we should have done as a city,” protecting the people of New York.

“The young man [Neely], in this case, was going within our system, throughout the revolving door of our system. Now, we’re on the subway where we’re hearing someone talking about hurting people, killing people,” Adams told the show’s titular host, formerly a GOP candidate for New York governor. “You have someone [Penny] on that subway who was responding — doing what we should have done as a city.”

“Those passengers were afraid,” Adams added. “I’ve been on the subway system. I know what it is like as a police officer to wrestle or fight with someone.”

Adams went on to criticize the city’s mental health support system.

The article concludes:

At the time of Neely’s death, there was an active warrant out for his arrest.

During closing arguments, the defense told jurors: “The government wasn’t there. The police weren’t there. Danny was.”

“And when he needed help, no one was there. The government has the nerve to blame Danny because police weren’t there. Blame Danny for holding on when police weren’t there,” Penny’s defense attorney Steven Raiser said.

Penny faces up to 19 years in prison if convicted on both counts.

Jury deliberations began on Tuesday following a month-long trial.

Adams said he hoped jurors would “make the right decision” when rendering Penny’s verdict.

“I’m hoping that the jury will hear all the facts, based on all the facts that’s laid out, a jury of his peers would make the right decision,” he stated.

“That could have easily been a case where you saw three innocent people murdered on our street two weeks ago,” Adams said Saturday, referencing a recent mid-November deadly stabbing spree in Manhattan.

“It is imperative that we look at the totality of this problem,” Adams urged.

I am not in favor of people taking the law into their own hands, but in this case, Daniel Penny probably saved at least one life.

The Case Is Falling Apart In A Trial That Should Never Have Happened

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On Sunday, The New York Post posted an article about the murder trial of Daniel Penny that is taking place in New York. As you remember, Daniel Penny is being tried for the subway murder of Jordan Neely in May 2023.

The article reports:

On Friday, the defense rested in the Daniel Penny trial, leaving many observers to ask what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was thinking in pursuing this case.

Over the course of the second-degree manslaughter trial, Bragg’s prosecutors tried to sell the narrative that the Marine vet overreacted and behaved “recklessly” when he restrained Jordan Neely on that F train back in May 2023.

But a host of prosecution witnesses, Penny’s fellow passengers, knocked massive holes in that tale, as one after another veteran subway rider described how terror-stricken they felt while trapped in the train car with the angry, unstable, threatening Neely.

One woman said she “was scared s–tless” by Neely’s behavior and recalled him yelling: “I don’t give a damn. I will kill a motherf—er. I’m ready to die.”

She stuck around after the ordeal to thank Penny for defending her and everyone else in the car that day.

Another, a high school student, said she was “so nervous” that she feared she “was going to pass out,” and said she didn’t hear other passengers’ warning to Penny to let go of Neely during the struggle.

The article concludes:

Closing arguments begin Dec. 2; it’s hard to think the jury will need to deliberate long.

It’s Bragg and his team who’ll have to put in time figuring out why they took such a weak case to trial.

There are some real questions in my mind as to how New York is making decisions regarding who to let off for crimes committed and who to put on trial. It seems to me that Daniel Penny is the least of New York’s worries as far as criminals are concerned.