Daniel Penny may have been acquitted, but the fact that he was prosecuted in the first place has already had a damaging effect.
In 2023, former Marine Daniel Penny stepped in on a New York City subway to subdue Jordan Neely, a mentally unstable homeless man with a lengthy criminal history who was threatening passengers. While many witnesses praised Penny as a hero, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took a different view, pursuing charges against him. The incident was promptly racialized, and while it’s a good thing he was acquitted, the damage appears to have been done nonetheless. In light of recent events, the trial has changed the psychology of New Yorkers, making them less likely to step up as good samaritans.
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) is speaking out about this phenomenon. She believes it discouraged ordinary citizens from stepping in to stop violent crimes, leaving public spaces less secure. Tenney has also criticized a lack of focus on public safety, highlighting the government’s responsibility to address rising crime and keep dangerous individuals off the streets.
She argued that the “chilling effect” appeared to play out in the tragic case of a woman being burned alive on the New York City subway last week as bystanders reportedly failed to act as Sebastian Zapeta, an illegal immigrant now charged with murder and arson, carried out the attack. Even law enforcement seemed unresponsive, raising questions about both police morale and the broader public’s willingness to intervene.
“Now, who would you rather have? Would you rather have this guy running around setting innocent women on fire or a former Marine, Daniel Penny, who was saving people, seeing a violent person, and protecting lives? And, thankfully, he was found innocent by a jury of his peers,” Tenney told Fox News earlier this week. “But this is the crisis that we face in New York. And it's not just New York City, it's all over New York because these laws apply all over New York.”
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“This is what you get,” she said. “You get unsafe streets, unsafe cities, and you know, demoralizing the police and making people think they're the enemy and relying on good Samaritans like Daniel Penny is not the answer and that's not the solution. Look, I think that this is definitely, as you say, having a chilling effect.”
Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, told Fox News Digital that the inaction of bystanders on the subway is because of the “Daniel Penny effect.”
"And I think that's because of the chilling effect that the Daniel Penny situation had on this entire city. It was not a racially divisive case… but what I have detected is that people just don't want to get involved," Sliwa said. "They don't want to be penetrated, as I call it, which means, God forbid, dragged into court, prosecuted, and then have your life turned upside down."
He said of the recent incident involving Zapeta, “Nobody got involved, no police on that train. When the police did respond. They didn’t do it expeditiously. And I think increasingly, you are going to see citizens just retreat.”
Sadly, I don't see it getting better any time soon.
