According to a retiree who witnessed the incident where Marine veteran Daniel Penny put Jordan Neely, a deranged homeless man who was threatening passengers, in a chokehold on a New York subway train earlier this month, not only is Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg wrong for prosecuting him, but Daniel Penny is a hero for his actions.
Asserting that Penny’s actions were in self-defense, the witness firmly believes that he protected numerous individuals who could have otherwise been harmed that day. In an interview with Fox News Digital, she passionately expressed her conviction that Penny’s actions saved people.
“He’s a hero,” said the passenger, a minority woman who has resided in New York City for over five decades. She told Fox News Digital, “It was self-defense, and I believe in my heart that he saved a lot of people that day that could have gotten hurt.”
On May 1, Jordan Neely, a career criminal, was causing a disturbance on the subway, berating passengers. Multiple witnesses have said that Neely had persistently tried to shove unsuspecting individuals onto subway tracks. It took three good Samaritans to subdue him.
“I’m sitting on a train reading my book, and, all of a sudden, I hear someone spewing this rhetoric. He said, ‘I don’t care if I have to kill an F, I will. I’ll go to jail, I’ll take a bullet,’” the witness recalled.
At that point, terrified passengers crowded by the exit doors in the hopes of escaping Neely, which wasn’t possible.
“I’m looking at where we are in the tube, in the sardine can, and I’m like, ‘OK, we’re in between stations. There’s nowhere we can go,’” she said. “The people on that train, we were scared. We were scared for our lives.”
According to her, Penny only took action when Neely began using threatening language such as “kill” and “bullet.”
“Why on earth would you risk taking a bullet?” she asked. “You don’t expose yourself to harm for simply snatching something from someone’s hand. You take a bullet to prevent violence.”
The witness, unable to see clearly due to limited visibility, heard a thumping sound when Penny brought Neely to the ground. She waited for the arrival of the police and provided a statement regarding the incident. She expressed that Penny’s actions were driven by his care for people, which she considered his only “crime.” Several passengers, including herself, thanked Penny for his intervention.
However, the witness noticed that Penny appeared shaken after the altercation. She emphasized that Penny had no intention of causing harm or killing Neely, which was evident from his distraught and visibly distressed state. Despite the distress, Penny chose not to flee the scene but stayed until the authorities arrived.
“Nobody wants to kill anybody. Mr. Penny didn’t want to kill that man,” she said. “You should have seen the way Mr. Penny looked. He was distraught. He was very, very, very visibly distressed. And he didn’t go. He didn’t run. He stayed.”
A legal defense fund for Penny has been set up and has amassed more than $2.5 million in donations thus far.
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