A grand jury has indicted former Marine Daniel Penny for the fatal choking of Jordan Neely, a deranged homeless man who was threatening passengers on a New York subway train last month.
On May 1, 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, including Penny.
Penny, 24, faces one charge of second-degree manslaughter and a charge of criminally negligent homicide. He faces potentially more than 15 years in prison for actions witnesses described as heroic and saving lives.
Despite being a clear case of self-defense, leftists immediately sought to racialize the incident, which is likely what prompted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to prosecute Penny,
In an interview with Fox News Digital, one witness, a black woman, passionately expressed her conviction that Penny’s actions saved people.
“He’s a hero,” said the passenger, who has resided in New York City for over five decades. “It was self-defense, and I believe in my heart that he saved a lot of people that day that could have gotten hurt.”
Related: Witness Says Daniel Penny Is a Hero: ‘We Were Scared for Our Lives’
“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 hoping to escape 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.”
She said 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.”
Penny’s attorney plan to work aggressively to clear his name.
“While we respect the decision of the grand jury to move this case forward to trial, it should be noted that the standard of proof in a grand jury is very low and there has been no finding of wrongdoing,” Penny’s attorney Steven Raiser said in a statement.
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