Daniel Penny Indicted For Choking Homeless Man Jordan Neely To Death In NYC Subway

On Wednesday, a New York City grand jury indicted Daniel Penny for choking a homeless man, Jordan Neely, to death on the subway.

After Neely’s death, the Manhattan district attorney charged Penny with manslaughter and was awaiting the decision of the grand jury to bring the case to court. 

The incident occurred on May 1 when Penny and Neely were on the same car on the subway.

Neely was homeless at the time and was struggling with mental illness. He was yelling threatening language at the other people on the train and acting erratically.

While he may have been disruptive to other passengers, Neely did not harm anyone physically nor was he violent towards anyone. Penny, a Marine veteran, felt that action needed to be taken and put Neely in a chokehold in an attempt to restrain him, leading to his death.

Neely’s death was determined to be a homicide by the city’s medical examiner. 

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There were numerous witnesses to the killing. One witness filmed the incident on his phone.

Penny says he was afraid of Neely and believed that he was going to harm someone.

Due to public support, especially from conservatives, Penny’s lawyers have been able to raise almost $3 million for a legal defense fund. 

On May 12, 11 days after the death occurred, Penny was arrested and arraigned after he turned himself in. He was given a $100,000 bond, which he was able to pay.  

The charges brought against Penny in the indictment are sealed. The details will be released when Penny attends court, but the date of that has not yet been announced.

Penny was expected to testify in front of the grand jury, but it has not been determined whether he actually did. Penny did conduct a video interview where he asserted that he did not mean to kill Neely and only wanted to restrain him because of Neely’s threats. 

It is believed his lawyers will argue that he was acting in self-defense and therefore what he did was justified. For Penny to be found guilty, the prosecution would have to prove that he placed Neely in a chokehold with the intent of killing him. 

Neely’s attorneys have made several statements including, “Daniel Penny’s indictment is the right result for the wrong he committed.”

They also added, “Bottom line – at some point Mr. Penny should have let go before Jordan died. There is no excuse for choking anyone for that long. Any reasonable person knows choking someone for that long will kill them.”

Penny’s lawyers similarly released several statements asserting, “The news of the indictment comes after Mr. Penny’s recent publicly-released interview, in which he explained how Mr. Neely threatened to kill the men, women, and children on the subway car. Mr. Penny also explained that he never intended to kill Mr. Neely, only to hold him down until police arrived. The video was seen by tens of millions of people, with thousands of commenters describing Mr. Penny as a hero.”