A Manhattan jury on Monday found the former Marine accused of fatally suffocating a homeless man in a New York subway car last year not guilty of manslaughter by criminal negligence. The agony and death of Jordan Neely, a Michael Jackson double suffering from schizophrenia, at the hands of veteran Daniel Penny, which were recorded by the mobile phone of one of the travelers, revealed the dimensions of the phenomenon of thousands of homeless people with mental problems. treated in the Big Apple, at a time when the suburban area was experiencing a wave of violent events. It was the x-ray of the city’s ills after the pandemic: the growing feeling of insecurity in the subway, the saturation of shelters and mental health services incapable of channeling the needs of people excluded from the system.
The judge had dismissed this Friday the most serious charge of involuntary manslaughter against Penny, 26, after jurors’ deliberations reached an impasse over the verdict on two occasions. “We ask that the main charge of second-degree murder be dismissed,” the assistant district attorney announced Friday, urging the jury to deliberate on another, lesser charge: criminally negligent homicide or manslaughter, with a possible sentence that He went from probation to a four-year prison sentence. The 12 jurors, seven women and five men, have agreed that the death of Neely, 30, was not criminal in nature.
After the judge announced the verdict, the courtroom reacted with divided opinions, some applause in the face of visible signs of discontent, such as those of the victim’s father, who was asked by the judge to leave the courtroom. Outside the court, dozens of protesters called for Penny’s acquittal, with banners calling him “a hero” and demanding “a prize, not jail,” while others demanded justice for the victim.
The acquittal brings to an end one of the highest-profile and most controversial criminal cases in recent years in New York City. Penny was charged with the death of Neely, a homeless man suffering from schizophrenia who, according to witnesses in the car, began making threats in a visible state of agitation after boarding an F subway car at the Second Avenue station. . Neely shouted that he didn’t care about dying, frightening the passengers in the car, when Penny, a former Marine, tackled him with an immobilization maneuver that kept the victim suffocated on the ground for about six minutes, according to the evidence presented to the jury, the most important of them the video.
Neely was pronounced dead shortly afterward. His death is reminiscent of that of the African American George Floyd, suffocated by a police officer, in Minneapolis in the spring of 2020.
The trial, which began in late October, focused on whether Penny caused Neely’s death by holding him so long and whether her actions were justified. Prosecutors argued that the defendant went “too far” and circled Neely’s neck longer than necessary, causing his death, making his actions “reckless and negligent.”
Defense attorneys have maintained that their client was only trying to protect himself and other travelers from Neely’s threats, and argued that the restraint maneuver may not have directly caused the death. The coroner ruled Neely’s death a homicide, but the former Marine’s lawyers have maintained throughout that the veteran had no intention of killing him, but was instead restraining him until the police arrived.
Neely had spent time on the streets, where he earned a meager living playing Michael Jackson in Times Square and other tourist sites in the city, but the lack of roots and the untreated schizophrenia he suffered from—a painful coincidence that is behind thousands of cases of homeless people in the city—were undermining him to the point of suffering frequent outbreaks of aggression, also against himself, such as the one he experienced on the morning of May 1, 2023.
The fatal incident sparked nearly two weeks of protests before Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office filed an indictment. The case had a great media impact, coinciding with a wave of violent incidents in the New York subway, and was also fodder for political exploitation by the increasingly visible ultra wing of the New York Republicans. who closed ranks around the accused, even contributing to fundraising campaigns for his defense.
The acquittal represents a new defeat for the Manhattan district attorney, instructor of the only case tried against Donald Trump, the case of the payment of a bribe to a porn actress to buy her silence, for which he was declared guilty, but which has remained suspended after the re-election of the Republican when there were days left before the reading of the sentence.
