Daniel Penny: Everything we know about ex-Marine filmed choking Jordan Neely in fatal subway incident
A former US Marine who choked Jordan Neely to loss of life on a New York Metropolis subway automobile on 1 Might has been recognized as 24-year-old Daniel James Penny.
Neely’s loss of life was dominated by the New York medical expert’s workplace as a murder attributable to compression in opposition to his neck. Video footage and eyewitness accounts present a person believed to be Mr Penny along with his arm wrapped round Neely’s neck for a number of minutes till his eyes shut and physique goes limp.
On 11 Might, the Manhattan District Legal professional’s workplace introduced Mr Penny would face a cost of second-degree manslaughter. He turned himself into authorities in Manhattan the next morning, and he was launched after posting $100,000 bail after a short arraignment listening to.
A grand jury voted to indict Mr Penny on 14 June.
He pleaded not responsible to the cost of second-degree manslaughter and a lesser cost of criminally negligent murder at his arraignment on 28 June.
“We’re assured that when a trial jury is tasked with weighing the proof, they may discover Daniel Penny’s actions on that practice had been totally justified,” Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff, attorneys for Mr Penny, informed The Unbiased in an announcement following information of the grand jury indictment.
New York Metropolis Police Division officers tried CPR upon arrival on the F practice on the Broadway-Lafayette platform in Manhattan on 1 Might, based on an incident report reviewed by The Unbiased. Neely was pronounced lifeless at Lenox Well being Greenwich Village hospital.
In an announcement shared with The Unbiased at 7.30pm on 5 Might, attorneys for Mr Penny stated that when Neely “started aggressively threatening Daniel Penny and the opposite passengers, Daniel, with the assistance of others, acted to guard themselves, till assist arrived.”
“Daniel by no means supposed to hurt Mr Neely and couldn’t have foreseen his premature loss of life,” the assertion added. “For too lengthy, these affected by psychological sickness have been handled with indifference. We hope that out of this terrible tragedy will come a brand new dedication by our elected officers to deal with the psychological well being disaster on our streets and subways.”
The Unbiased and different information retailers confirmed Mr Penny’s identification earlier on 5 Might after on-line sleuths first found his identify the earlier evening. A number of information retailers, together with The New York Submit and The New York Each day Information, reported makes an attempt to succeed in him for remark earlier in the week or revealed particulars about his army historical past, however withheld his identify from the general public.
Neely’s earlier felony file and household historical past had been broadly revealed throughout tabloids and mainstream information retailers in the times after his loss of life; much less was recognized about the person who fatally choked him.
Broadly shared video footage captured by journalist Juan Alberto Vazquez exhibits a person believed to be Mr Penny and two different males holding Neely to the ground of a practice automobile on 1 Might.
Police initially questioned however didn’t arrest Mr Penny.
Mr Penny is represented by attorneys with the agency Raiser and Kenniff, whose founding companions had been each in the armed companies. Thomas Kenniff additionally unsuccessfully ran for Manhattan district lawyer as a Republican in 2021, finally dropping to Alvin Bragg, who obtained greater than 82 per cent of the vote.
Attorneys for Neely’s household stated the assertion from Mr Penny’s authorized staff was neither “an apology nor an expression of remorse” however “character assassination and a transparent instance of why he believed he was entitled to take Jordan’s life.”
His household and the authorized staff supporting them have repeatedly characterised Mr Penny as the only aggressor who escalated Neely’s misery to deadly violence.
Neely’s loss of life has sparked widespread calls for for assist for homeless and mentally sick New Yorkers, as advocates and lawmakers condemned what they characterised as an act of vigilantism in a metropolis that has marginalised its most susceptible residents.
Attorneys for Mr Penny stated in an announcement shared with the The Unbiased on 11 Might that they’re “assured” he will probably be “totally absolved of any wrongdoing” when all of the “info and circumstances” emerge.
“When Mr Penny, a adorned Marine veteran, stepped in to guard himself and his fellow New Yorkers, his well-being was not assured. He risked his personal life and security, for the nice of his fellow passengers,” they wrote.
Who’s Daniel Penny?
In accordance with US Marine Corps information and a LinkedIn profile, Mr Penny joined the Marines in 2017 after graduating from West Islip Excessive College, a hamlet roughly 36 miles outdoors of Manhattan in Suffolk County.
Public information affirm Mr Penny’s former handle at Marine Corps Base Camp LeJeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina. He served as a rifleman from 2017 to 2021 and reached the rank of sergeant, based on army information.
He left the Marines in 2021. He wrote in a service trade job web site that his army expertise helped him uncover that he’s “passionate” about “serving to, speaking, and connecting to completely different folks from everywhere in the world.”
In interviews with The New York Post and Fox News, Mr Penny stated he served as an infantry squad chief and an teacher in water survival and was deployed twice with journey to Spain, Greece, Jordan, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Japan.
Pictures on a profile on the climbing web site All Trails that seems to belong to Mr Penny additionally present his visits to trails throughout New England, Hawaii, Honduras, and North Carolina.
He’s finding out structure whereas enrolled in faculty in New York, accordingto hist attorneys.
When he walked right into a subway automobile on 1 Might, Neely – a road performer who was experiencing homelessness – was complaining of starvation and thirst, based on Mr Vazquez, who posted a video of a part of the incident on his Fb web page.
He wrote that Neely was yelling and stated he was drained, didn’t care whether or not he went to jail, and was able to die. He stated Neely threw his jacket to the ground of the practice automobile earlier than one other passenger grabbed him in a headlock. Others grabbed at his arms.
Within the video filmed from contained in the practice automobile, a passenger may be heard warning the person holding Neely in a chokehold.
“You don’t wish to catch a homicide cost,” a person may be heard saying. “You bought a hell of a chokehold, man.”
Mr Penny informed Fox Information that he was impressed by Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel (“One of many total messages that he talked about was that good folks did nothing … It’s a lesson that I carry with me to today”) and has repeatedly asserted that he choked Neely to forestall him from attacking different passengers.
Neely didn’t bodily assault any passengers that day. His household intends to file a wrongful loss of life lawsuit in opposition to Mr Penny.
A web based fundraising marketing campaign for Mr Penny’s authorized defence was launched on the Christian crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo, an internet site created in response to GoFundMe eradicating far-right campaigns that violated its phrases of service. The fundraiser reached greater than $2m inside days of its launch, together with roughly $600,000 on the day Mr Penny was charged alone.
A number of donors – together with Child Rock, far-right streamer Tim Pool, and Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy – have contributed big sums to Mr Penny’s fund, which is run by his attorneys.
“I used to be working two jobs as a pupil,” Mr Penny informed Fox Information. “My household doesn’t come from cash so I’m extremely grateful for this fund and all of the individuals who have supported me.”
This was initially revealed on 5 Might and has been up to date with developments
