After acquittal in subway chokehold trial, Daniel Penny says he was vulnerable in the encounter

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NEW YORK (AP) — After being acquitted of homicide, the military veteran who choked a volatile, mentally ill man on a New York subway told an interviewer he put himself in a “very vulnerable position” but felt compelled to act.

“I’ll take a million court appearances and people calling me names and people hating me, just to keep one of those people from getting hurt or killed,” Daniel Penny told Fox News in a clip that aired Tuesday, a day after the verdict.

Meanwhile, scores of New Yorkers protested the trial outcome, holding signs and chanting Jordan Neely’s name in a Manhattan square Tuesday evening.

“Yes, he was acting erratically. But personally, I don’t believe being mentally unwell and being homeless is a crime worthy of death,” said one of the organizers, Sean Blackmon.

An anonymous Manhattan jury cleared Penny of a criminally negligent homicide charge in the death of Neely, 30. The jury had deadlocked last week on a more serious manslaughter charge, which was dismissed.

Penny, who served four years in the Marines, put Neely in a chokehold for about six minutes after Neely had an outburst that frightened riders on a subway car on May 1, 2023. Penny is white. Neely was Black.

According to passengers, Neely hadn’t touched anyone but had expressed willingness to die, go to jail — even to kill, some said. The former street performer was homeless, had schizophrenia, had synthetic marijuana in his system and had been convicted of assaulting people at subway stations.

In his first extensive comments since the trial began, Penny told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro that he’s “not a confrontational person.” But he said he wouldn’t have been able to live with “the guilt I would have felt if someone did get hurt, if he did do what he was threatening to do.”

Penny’s arm remained around Neely’s neck after another rider intervened to hold down the man’s arms, and onlookers worried aloud that Neely might be dying, and he went still for nearly a minute, bystanders’ video showed.

Penny told Pirro that he was in a “very vulnerable position” as he restrained Neely on the subway floor.

“If I just let him go, I’m on my back now, he could just turn around and start doing what he said to me … killing, hurting,” Penny said in the clips, aired ahead of the planned release of the full interview Wednesday on the Fox Nation streaming service.

Penny, 26, also criticized city officials as “self-serving,” suggesting that they were refusing to scrutinize their own roles in the conditions that led to his encounter with Neely.

“These are their policies that clearly have not worked,” Penny said. But, he added, “their egos are too big just to admit that they’re wrong.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat whose office brought the case, said after the verdict that prosecutors “followed the facts and the evidence from beginning to end.” His office had no further comment Tuesday.

During the monthlong trial, prosecutors said Penny went too far in responding to Neely, who was unarmed. The veteran’s lawyers argued that he put his own safety on the line to protect other passengers from a threatening man.

The case sparked national debate and divided New Yorkers over issues of homelessness and public safety in a city where millions ride the subway every day.

Penny chose not to testify at the trial, but the jury heard what he told police shortly after his encounter with Neely. Describing Neely as “a crackhead” who was “acting like a lunatic,” Penny said he put the man in a chokehold and “just put him out” in order to prevent him from injuring anyone.

“I’m not trying to kill the guy,” he told detectives in a recorded interview. “I’m just trying to de-escalate the situation.”

A city medical examiner determined that the chokehold killed Neely, but Penny’s defense challenged the finding.