Daniel Penny found ‘not guilty’

CV NEWS FEED // A unanimous jury on Monday found Daniel Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely. Penny was facing the remaining charge after Judge Maxwell Wiley dismissed the charge of second-degree manslaughter on Friday due to a hung jury.

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Penny, a Marine veteran, was riding the New York City subway when an intoxicated and erratic Neely entered Penny’s subway car. Neely proceeded to threaten the lives of passengers and claimed that he was not afraid to go to jail. 

Penny then tried to neutralize Neely by placing him in a chokehold while passengers called 911 and waited for the police to arrive on the scene. 

When the police arrived, Neely was not breathing but had a pulse. He was taken to a hospital, where he later passed away. 

According to The Daily Wire Neely had had a troubled past and suffered from mental health issues. It came out in the trial that,

Neely had an active warrant for his arrest relating to an alleged assault in 2021. Neely also had a history of violence, including other assaults on the subway, Fox News reported.

Neely also was hospitalized more than a dozen times for psychotic episodes, and claimed to hear deceased rapper Tupac and the devil, The Daily Wire previously reported.

After the incident with Neely, Penny went to the police precinct and gave his account of the events. A video of the interview was used in court and played a key role in the jury’s decision to acquit Penny.

>>> RELATED: NYC Mayor Adams: Daniel Penny did ‘what we should have done as a city’ <<<

“Some guy came in, and he’s like with his jacket off and he’s like, ‘I’m gonna kill everybody. I’m gonna go to prison forever. I don’t care,’” Penny told police in the video. “I just kind of, like, grabbed him from behind, because he was acting like a crazy person.”

Penny added also recounted how he and other passengers worked together to protect onlookers from Neely’s menacing behavior: 

So, and he was rolling around the floor. And at that point, the train stopped. I was like, “Someone call the cops,” and he’s still, like rolling around, still going crazy. I had two other guys kind of help me just kind of keep him from going nuts. And yeah, that’s when you guys came.

According to the Inner City Press, the courtroom had mixed reactions when the verdict was read out. 

Those on Penny’s side of the room erupted in applause, while Neely’s side of the courtroom made threats, stating  “…gonna get killed,” and “It’s a small world buddy… It’s a racist country.”

Neely’s father, Andre Zachary, was reportedly removed from the courtroom after an outburst and has filed a civil suit against Penny for “wrongful death,” seeking damages “in a sum which exceeds the jurisdictional limits of all lower Courts which would otherwise have jurisdiction,” as NBC News reported.

Zachary spoke to reporters outside the courtroom following the verdict. “I just want to say, I miss my son,” he said. “My son didn’t have to go through this. I didn’t have to go through this either. It hurts, really, really hurts.”