Daniel Penny Acquitted In Subway Death Of Jordan Neely
December 9, 2024
A jury found the former Marine not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the killing of subway passenger Jordan Neely
A New York City jury found former Marine Daniel Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the killing of subway passenger Jordan Neely.
According to CBS News, the jury decided that Penny wasn’t guilty of killing Jordan Neely after he placed him in a deadly chokehold that led to his death on a subway. The verdict came down after the judge dismissed the manslaughter charge on Dec. 6 when jurors informed Judge Maxwell Wiley that they could not come to a unanimous decision on that charge. He was charged with criminally negligent homicide and second-degree manslaughter. Now, he is a free man.
CNN reported that after the verdict was announced, Andre Zachary, Neely’s father, expressed his disappointment in the jury’s decision.
“I miss my son. My son didn’t have to go through this. I didn’t have to go through this either. It hurts; it really, really hurts. What are we going to do, people? What’s going to happen to us now? I’ve had enough of this. The system is rigged.”
The subway killing took place on May 1, 2023. Court documents revealed that Neely, who was homeless, entered the subway station in Manhattan at the 2nd Avenue station. He got on the F train, and witnesses said that he allegedly threatened several people, but no one in particular. Several clips appeared online, caught by bystanders, showing that after he yelled at several people, Penny grabbed Neely and placed the homeless man in a chokehold for several minutes, even after the homeless man went limp.
People protested and complained that police officers allowed Penny, a white man, to leave the scene, while the man he killed, Neely, was a Black man, leading some to speculate racism played a role in not apprehending Penny. CBS News reported that three days later, a medical examiner ruled Neely’s death was a homicide, with the cause as compression of the neck. Toxicology reports showed Neely had synthetic marijuana in his system when he died.
Penny was arrested two weeks later.
Last week, Newsweek reported that Zachary filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court against Penny, accusing him of negligence, assault, and battery, resulting in the death of Neely. Zachary is seeking damages “in a sum which exceeds the jurisdictional limits of all lower Courts which would otherwise have jurisdiction.”
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