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Marine veteran Daniel Penny was found not guilty today of criminally negligent homicide in the death of homeless, mentally ill, part-time Michael Jackson impersonator Jordan Neely, who threatened and intimidated passengers on a New York City subway car in 2023. It was a trial that divided the nation between those that saw Penny as a hero and those that saw him as a racist vigilante.
As you no doubt recall, Neely, 30, was described by witnesses on the subway car as ranting in an “insanely threatening” way, including declaring “I want to hurt people,” that “someone is going to die today,” and that he wanted “to go to prison.” Court documents indicated that passengers feared for their lives. Penny, a fellow passenger, stepped up to prevent others from being victimized, subduing Neely in a chokehold while a couple of other passengers assisted until officers and responders arrived. Neely died later at the scene, and Penny was subsequently charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, facing up to 15 years in prison. Penny, now 26, pleaded not guilty.
His attorneys argued that their client’s chokehold was justified due to Neely’s menacing behavior, and they also questioned whether the chokehold even caused the homeless man’s death. The medical examiner never provided specific evidence to support the claim that Neely died of asphyxiation.
“Some people say I was trying to choke him to death, which is also not true. I was trying to restrain him,” said Penny, who had to walk each day to the courthouse through a gauntlet of noisy Black Lives Matter protesters. “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.”
Before his death, Neely had been arrested well over 40 times for multiple assaults, attempted child abduction, drugs, and indecent exposure. At the time of his subway confrontation with Penny, he was also under investigation for pushing someone onto the subway tracks. There was a warrant out for his arrest related to a violent attack on a 67-year-old woman.
NYC Councilwoman Vickie Paladino attended closing arguments in the case and tweeted, “What I witnessed was a travesty the likes of which I didn’t think possible in the United States”:
I saw despicable excuse for a DA stand up in front of a court and flagrantly lie for no other reason but to destroy the life of a good man for the ‘crime’ of protecting a train full of people from a violent deranged bum… And it shows how nakedly and unapologetically political the Manhattan DA’s office has become. Shame on us for allowing our once-great city to descend to this level. I’d call it a clown show but that would imply there’s an element of humor in any of this. There isn’t. I only pray that the jury can see through this charade and find Daniel Penny innocent. Either way, the damage has been done and the message is clear — the Manhattan DA will not think twice about destroying the life of anyone who stands up to criminals in self defense. We are to be ruled by the lawless…
The jury initially deliberated for three days before ending deadlocked, leading the judge to dismiss the manslaughter charge on Friday. But instead of declaring a mistrial, the judge – determined to find Penny guilty of something – sent the jury back for continued deliberation on the lesser charge, which came with a sentence of up to four years. Today, the jury found him not guilty of that charge.
“The NYPD Officers who initially interviewed Daniel Penny and declined to arrest him got it right,” Maud Maron told Fox News Digital. Maron is a former public defender and parents’ rights advocate who is running to unseat George Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Maron continued,
The Manhattan jury who heard all the evidence, deliberated and returned a verdict of not guilty got it right. The New Yorkers and their fellow Americans who were rooting for Daniel Penny as a hero and understood he should never have been charged in the first place got it right. The only person who got this wrong was Alvin Bragg.
Black supremacist Hawk Newsome, leader of the Black Lives Matter chapter of Greater New York, denounced the decision outside the courthouse as a victory for “white supremacy” and the “KKK,” and called for black vigilantism against whites.
Penny’s supporters, on the other hand, are exultant – but it surely must feel like a hollow victory to Penny himself, who was needlessly dragged through this legal ringer by race-mongering, pro-crime activists like D.A. Bragg and prosecutor Dafna Yoran, who repeatedly referred to Penny as the “white man” during the trial. Yoran, by the way, was hailed in Go Mag’s “100 Women We Love” for spearheading “restorative justice” for a black man who mugged and killed an 87-year-old Asian professor. (Yoran is also “married” to a Black Lives Matter-supporting artist who specializes in “Latinx,” “Feminist,” and “Decolonial” work.)
And besides, Penny’s ordeal isn’t over yet. Neely’s father filed a wrongful death suit against Penny last week even as jury deliberation began. Where was this model father when his mentally ill son was living on the street committing dozens of crimes? It’s hard not to see his lawsuit as naked opportunism.
But for tonight, justice has been done. Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz) even wants to award Penny the Congressional Gold Medal. Prior to the acquittal, Crane announced plans to introduce a resolution to do just that. “Daniel Penny’s actions exemplify what it means to stand against the grain to do right in a world that rewards moral cowardice,” said Crane:
Our system of “justice” is fiercely corrupt, allowing degenerates to steamroll our laws and our sense of security, while punishing the righteous. Mr. Penny bravely stood in the gap to defy this corrupt system and protect his fellow Americans. I’m immensely proud to introduce this resolution to award him with the Congressional Gold Medal to recognize his heroism.
The resolution adds, “It is the sense of the Congress that Daniel Penny, with integrity and honor that is characteristic of who he is and of his honorable service in the United States Marine Corps, stepped in to protect women and children from an individual who was threatening to kill innocent bystanders, and he is a hero.”
Hero indeed. Whether you wanted Daniel Penny acquitted or convicted says everything about what kind of society you think America should be: one in which righteous men are honored for intervening to defend the defenseless, or one in the grip of chaos and disorder, where the full weight of the State’s law enforcement apparatus is directed not at the lawless and the criminally insane, but at those it deems must be punished for the sake of racial “equity.” Today, New York City jurors voted for the former, and I don’t think it’s reading too much into it to see that as a welcome, positive sign of a much-needed shift in this country away from wokeness and toward reason and commonsense.
Domestic terrorists like Hawk Newsome and BLM are threatening to turn Neely’s death into another George Floyd movement to justify their violent, anti-white racism and anti-Americanism, but this is a different country from 2020 when that rioting swept American cities – it’s even different from one month ago. The Trump election landslide has flipped the political and cultural momentum. As my colleague Daniel Greenfield has pointed out, “After the Daniel Penny verdict, BLM couldn’t summon up more than a sidewalk scuffle. BLM was never anything but a front for leftist groups that are currently busy rioting against Israel. Without leftist backing, BLM is nothing.”
And Daniel Penny is free.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior