Controversial "vigilante" NYC killing of autistic black man

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Geotz at least had a case he stood his ground (allegedly) that one or more of the 4 men he shot threatened him and they were armed. (I suspect he decided to go "Clint Eastwood" and that the men would have not physically touched him had he given his wallet, Geotz might have had a case but what he did was ultimately dangerous and questionable given he intended to kill and we don't know if there was probably cause.

On the other hand Neely was having some type of mental health episode on a train ranting at multiple passengers. There was no evidence a) he was carrying a weapon or b) he directed any threat to Penny. The bad news for Penny is everything was caught on video and there were multiple witnesses. Strap yourself in.

aniel Penny, the man who put Jordan Neely in a deadly chokehold nearly two weeks ago, was arraigned on a charge of manslaughter in Manhattan Criminal Court.

Penny, 24, will face up to 15 years in prison if he is found guilty. Supervising Judge Kevin McGrath set bail at $100,000 and ordered Penny to turn over his passports within 48 hours. Penny, who was dressed in a black suit and white button-down shirt, looked straight ahead with his hands in cuffs behind him. He barely spoke, except to answer a few basic questions.

Penny was escorted into a packed courtroom shortly after noon, as throngs of reporters waited outside the doors to the arraignment room and on the sidewalk across the street from the courthouse in Lower Manhattan.

Prosecutors asked for the bail conditions set by McGrath, and defense attorneys did not object – though they noted that Penny had voluntarily turned himself in after cooperating with law enforcement since the incident. They called him a “pillar of his community” and said he received multiple accolades while serving in the Marines, including a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and six ribbons.

The Manhattan District Attorney's office said Penny did not enter a plea Friday.

The official fund, generated by law firm Raiser & Kenniff, P.C. which is representing Penny, had raised more than $283,000 as of 11 a.m. Friday. Penny’s lawyers confirmed they set up the fund on GiveSendGo, and said it launched earlier this week.

Like many crowdsourcing sites, GiveSendGo supports various causes, such as medical bills and funeral expenses. It has promoted itself as “The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site” and has also hosted funds for the Jan. 6 defendants and Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of homicide after killing two people during a 2020 protest in Wisconsin.

GiveSendGo has been host to several right-leaning crowdfunding campaigns in the past, among them legal defense funds for Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of all charges in a criminal trial after fatally shooting two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020, amid protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was left paralyzed.

It also established a Jan. 6 legal defense fund for people charged in connection with the 2021 Capitol riots as well as a “legal offense fund” for MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who promoted former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

“All Americans are concerned about election integrity,” said GiveSendGo co-founder Jacob Wells in a press release at the time. “Through this campaign Mike Lindell is giving them an opportunity to correct flaws in the system.”

In a statement provided to Gothamist Friday, Wells confirmed the site's religious philosophy, but said it supports causes across the political spectrum.

"GiveSendGo does not support right wing causes over left wing causes. GiveSendGo is a platform that allows campaigns, that are legal endeavors, from all sides of the political/ideological divide. In this moment in time when voices are amplified through social platforms, potentially damaging an individuals right to a fair and impartial trial, it is paramount to allow individuals the access to funds to afford them a rigorous defense and a presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law," Wells said. "This principle is fundamental to our constitutional republic and at GiveSendGo we will continue to stand for these fundamental freedoms while also sharing the Hope of Jesus with everyone who uses our platform. "

Ex-Marine Daniel Penny insisted to The Post Saturday that the chokehold killing of Jordan Neely had nothing to do with race — and everything to do with a broken system “that so desperately failed us.”

In his first public comments since the caught-on-video May 1 tragedy on an F train, Penny was both soft-spoken and stoic about being at the center of a political and racial firestorm, as he faces criminal charges that could send him to prison for up to 15 years.

“This had nothing to do with race,” said Penny, 24, sitting under a gazebo at Argyle Park in Babylon, not far from the Long Island beaches where he grew up surfing.

Dressed in black slacks, a blue zip-up jacket and beat-up Vans sneakers, Penny didn’t flinch when asked about Neely, a black, 30-year-old mentally ill homeless man.

“I judge a person based on their character. I’m not a white supremacist.

“I mean, it’s, it’s a little bit comical. Everybody who’s ever met me can tell you, I love all people, I love all cultures. You can tell by my past and all my travels and adventures around the world. I was actually planning a road trip through Africa before this happened.”

He is not a vigilante, Penny said. “I’m a normal guy.”

Penny said he could not go into detail about the events that then transpired because of his pending case, but he indicated it wasn’t like “anything I’d experienced before.”

This was different, this time was much different,” Penny said.

He paused and said again, “This time was very different.”

Penny said he was coming back to Manhattan from school and was en route to his gym on West 23rd Street when the chaotic encounter erupted. He did not want to name the school where he is studying architecture. He is now taking classes remotely.

“I was going to my gym,” Penny said. “There’s a pool there. I like to swim. I was living in the East Village. I take the subway multiple times a day. I think the New York transit system is the best in the world and I’ve been all over the world.”

When asked what he would say to the family of Jordan Neely, whose funeral was Friday, Penny looked somber, carefully choosing his words.

“I’m deeply saddened by the loss of life,” he said ” It’s tragic what happened to him. Hopefully, we can change the system that’s so desperately failed us.”

But when asked if he would take action again if he were in a similar situation, Penny nodded.

“You know, I live an authentic and genuine life,” Penny said. “And I would — if there was a threat and danger in the present …”

Does he feel he did anything to be ashamed of?

“I don’t, I mean, I always do what I think is right.”

The Post read Penny the statement made by the Rev. Al Sharpton at Neely’s funeral in Harlem Friday: “We can’t live in a city where you can choke me to death with no provocation, no weapon, no threat and you go home and sleep in your bed while my family has to put me into a cemetery.”

Penny nodded but said he was “not sure” who Sharpton is. “I don’t really know celebrities that well.”

He added that he does not watch the news. While he is aware of some of the negativity toward him — and said he was somewhat surprised by the media onslaught — he remained philosophical.

“If you’re faced with all these challenges, you have to remain calm. What’s the point of worrying about something, worrying is not going to make your problems disappear. I attribute this to my father and grandfather. They are very very stoic.”

Penny said he gave up social media years ago.

“I don’t follow anyone, and I don’t have social media because I really don’t like the attention and I just think there are better ways to spend your time. I don’t like the limelight.”

Penny, who has three sisters, said he has been surrounded by family and friends since the incident — and says his family is “hanging in there.”

“My mom is OK,” he said. “My sisters understand. They all support me.”

Penny described a relatively happy childhood growing up in the West Islip area. He was one of four children. His parents split up when he was young.

He said his two role models are his grandfathers, one of whom immigrated from Italy. The other grandfather is a first-generation American whose parents immigrated from Italy. He said he moved around a lot in the West Islip area because of his parents’ split but spent much of his formative years in a house right near the sea that his great-grandfather bought in the 1960s.

“My grandmother was raised there,” Penny said. “And then my father and his brothers were raised there. And then me and my sisters were able to grow up there. I’m very thankful. It is a beautiful house right [near] the water. We wouldn’t have been able to live that lifestyle on the water if it wasn’t for my family.”

Penny said his parents’ divorce was difficult but it had an upside.

“It brought me and my sisters closer. You know, we’re really close. I love my sisters. I have three of them. I’d do anything for them.”

Penny attended Suffolk Community College after graduating from West Islip High School where he was a lacrosse star – before enlisting in the Marines.

“Growing up in the wake of 9/11 and the terrorist attacks in a community full of firemen, first responders, police officers, it was like, I needed to serve my community in some way.”

Penny was deployed twice with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.

We went to Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Greece and Spain,” he said. “We stayed off the coast of Iran for a bit. It was during that whole drone thing when they were shooting stuff down and stuff.”

Penny also went to Okinawa, Japan.

“I love to travel,” he said. “It really changed my perspective of the world for sure. I’m very thankful for being able to travel so much. Just the friendliness and welcoming of everyone and everywhere that I went to. And even before I deployed, you know, a lot of my friends I served with in my platoon came from all over a lot from Central America and Mexico, that, you know, I’ve opened up my, my eyes to their cultures and their perspectives.”

“I loved leading Marines and I love being around Marines,” he said of his service, where he eventually achieved the rank of sergeant. “I love helping people.”

Penny said he “didn’t try to become a leader” in the Marine Corps.

enny said he didn’t “try to become a leader” in the Marines. “I just did what I had to do. And I think growing up in a majority female household, you learn to lead in different ways from an early age. You learn to have compassion and humility — and disregard your perspective and show compassion to other people’s perspectives as well.”

Leaving the Marines was a “tough transition.”

“I really missed the interaction,” he said. “I missed the adventure, you know. So last summer, I decided to drive from New York and do a road trip through Mexico and Central America all the way to Nicaragua.”

Penny said he drove cross country and then down to Mexico, mostly by himself but with a friend part of the time. He got caught in a bad hurricane in an enchanted forest in Oaxaca, he said, and was trapped on a mountain for 48 hours.

“My car got stuck in a landslide,” Penny said. ”We had to hike and find a local village to come help dig us out. They were so friendly and kind. They really treated me like family.

“You hear so many bad things about these places,” Penny said. “I just wanted to see for myself, and thankfully I was proven right that these people were always welcoming and friendly and treated me like family everywhere.”

Penny said he was sitting in a coffee shop in Guatemala last year when he said he “suddenly felt overwhelmingly at home.”

“I was in Antigua, Guatemala, in a coffee shop. And I was just kind of overwhelmed by a sense of home even though I couldn’t be further from home, you know. So I just I attribute that that obviously, the locals there. They were very welcome — and also the structure I was sitting in. It was there I decided I wanted to study architecture and maybe help inspire other feelings of home for other people.”

Penny said he owes his calm demeanor to his many days on the water — and said he planned to surf Saturday afternoon after the interview to blow off steam.

“I’ve been surfing my entire life,” he said. “Growing up on the water, growing up at the beach, it’s what my father and grandfather did, too.”

A New York City grand jurors on Wednesday indicted Daniel Penny in the death of fellow subway rider Jordan Neely, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The death last month has been a lightning rod on issues of mental health, crime and race.

Penny, a 24-year-old Marine veteran, was indicted on a second-degree manslaughter charge in the May 1 confrontation with the homeless Neely, the sources said. A representative for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to comment to NBC News.

A spokesperson for Penny also declined to comment

Daniel Penny, the man who choked a homeless man to death last May on a New York City subway car, will stand trial beginning Oct. 8, a judge determined Wednesday.

The trial will take between four and six weeks, according to Judge Max Wiley.

Penny has pleaded not guilty to the charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in connection with Jordan Neely's death.

A court date has been scheduled for Sept. 17 for a hearing to suppress statements Penny made to investigators prior to his arrest.

A judge denied Penny's bid to dismiss his involuntary manslaughter case in January.

A New York City jury will likely hear statements a man made to police after he fatally choked a homeless man on the subway last year, a judge ruled on Friday afternoon.

Daniel Penny told police that Jordan Neely was “going crazy” and that he put Neely “in a choke” because Neely “was threatening everybody,” according to court records.

“I had him pretty good,” Penny told an officer at the Broadway-Lafayette Street station, records show. “I was in the Marine Corps.”

Penny is facing manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges for choking Jordan Neely on the F train last year. He doesn’t deny that he wrapped his arms around Neely’s neck, and says he was trying to protect fellow subway riders because Neely was scaring people. Penny has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A video of Penny holding Neely on the floor of the subway went viral at a time when concerns about subway safety, homelessness and mental illness were top of mind for many New Yorkers.

Police spoke with Penny at the subway station and the local precinct that day, but let him go home afterward. Protesters flooded subway platforms — with some even jumping onto the tracks — and urged Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to bring criminal charges. Penny was arrested more than a week later.

The case became a kind of Rorschach test, as some praised what they said was Penny’s bravery and donated to his multimillion-dollar legal defense fund, while others decried him as an overzealous vigilante.

As Penny’s late October trial date approaches, both the prosecution and defense teams have asked a judge to block pieces of evidence from the jury, arguing that permitting them could hurt their respective versions of the case.

As the trial nears for Daniel Penny, who is accused of fatally choking a homeless man on a New York City subway, use-of-force experts talk to Newsweek about the science behind chokeholds and how each side will potentially present its case to the jury.

Dr. John R. Black, a retired police lieutenant and expert witness in cases involving high-stress decision making and lethal force, broke down the case.

"A tragedy has occurred on all sides, and the best thing that we can do before we pass judgment is to truly try to understand how these things occur, both from a sense-making, decision-making standpoint, the choices of the actor, as well as by an evidence-based standpoint about what actually occurs and what the science shows," Black told Newsweek.

Black explained one type of chokehold and the purpose of it.

"In some places, it's referred to as a lateral vascular neck restraint, which is the idea of shutting down the blood flow to the brain," Black said. "The blood carries oxygen. If that occurs for enough time, depending on the person's state of arousal, how much under stress they are, the person that is having a choke applied to them, basically they go unconscious."

Jamie Borden, a police veteran and expert witness in cases involving use of force, discussed how the lateral vascular neck restraint (LVNR) is used by law enforcement.

"The crook of the arm cradles the airway, does not collapse the airway, but the pressure is on the right and left carotid artery," Borden said. "That's called the lateral vascular neck restraint. That causes, again, a momentary outage in consciousness and the officers are able to safely detain or control a subject otherwise out of control."

'Chokehold is What Caused the Death'
Black said there is another type of chokehold that has a different intent.

"In contrast, we also use the word chokehold for the shutting down of the airway," Black said. "Usually, it would normally also occur with some sort of potential damage."

Borden said the different types of restraints can appear similar on video. He said public response to fatal incidents has led to police departments banning LVNRs.

"No matter what the circumstances, the appearances cause an emotional, conductive belief that the chokehold is what caused the death," Borden said.

Black said that restraints like the LVNR are widely taught and typically non-lethal.

"Chokeholds, as whatever they're called, whether it's to shut down the blood flow or anything else, is still used consistently in anything from military to competitions, taught to six-year-olds in judo. It's not, on its face value, this technique that's designed to always produce death, but sometimes it does," Black said.

Black explained why these maneuvers are safe to use in these settings.

"The Marines already know, the guys doing judo already know if they tap, the other person's going to release them," Black said. "If they're in competition, both of them are physically fit. They know what a choke feels like. They don't panic when they get choked. In fact, they try to figure out how to get out of it, how to defeat the choke. They're taught how to defeat it. That's a completely different mindset, right? But what was Jordan's mindset? We don't know."


Borden explained the increased risk when a civilian is performing the restraint.

"The problem with the civilian in these types of high-profile use of force cases is we don't know what their training is," Borden said. "We don't know if they understand the application of what would be considered a less lethal application of a hands-on tactic."

Black questioned how Penny arrived at the decision to use the chokehold maneuver on Neely on the subway.

"Where did he shift these models to a New York subway? Because I'm pretty sure that no Marine instructor said, 'OK, now, hypothetically, we're on a New York subway,'" Black said.

Despite this, Black said there was an intention that Penny viewed as rational.

"Every decision made by a decision maker makes sense at the time that they made it, even if they don't know why," Black said.

'Passionate Belief'
Black said prosecutors will likely focus on the severity of the threat Neely posed and the intensity of Penny's response.

"The prosecutor's argument is primarily an argument of, we'll call it, disproportionate response. This person did not represent the level of threat by which the technique that the other person chose was applied, so there's a mismatch," Black said.

Borden said the prosecution will likely emphasize the appearance of the incident.

"The prosecution is more than likely building their case on a passionate belief that something was done wrong," Borden said. "That doesn't mean that it wasn't done wrong, but I'm saying that they'll present their case from a point of passionate belief about the appearance of the incident."

The defense will likely challenge that point, according to Black.

"The other argument is we have the right to use a proportional level of force, and actually the law would say a reasonably necessary level of force to protect ourselves or to protect another," Black said.

Borden said Penny must be able to prove that he actually believed his life was in danger.

"I want to know why you feared for your life," Borden said. "Tell me the story and give me the perceptions at a raw perspective level and let me understand how you feared for your life."

Black said both the prosecution and defense arguments have merit based on the evidence in the case.

"What's interesting to me, when you begin to unpack this, is both arguments could absolutely be true based on the physical evidence," Black said

?
I imagine Derek Chauvin's legal defense team might be watching this case with interest.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers agree on one thing about Marine veteran Daniel Penny's encounter last year with a distressed, angry and threatening man on a New York subway: Penny didn't mean to kill him.

But a prosecutor told jurors Friday that Penny "went way too far" in trying to neutralize someone he saw as a threat and not as a person, while a defense attorney said Penny showed "courage" and put others' welfare ahead of his own when he placed Jordan Neely in a chokehold that ended with Neely limp on the floor.

Both sides gave opening statements Friday in the manslaughter trial surrounding Neely's death.

On the first day of the trial, jurors also saw body camera video that had not yet been publicly released of Penny's initial encounter with police, four and a half minutes after letting go of Neely.

Prosecution gives opening statement
On May 1, 2023 Daniel Penny was indifferent to Jordan Neely, disregarded basic precautions and human decency and needlessly killed him aboard a subway car by placing him in a chokehold that lasted "way too long," a prosecutor said Friday in an opening statement at Penny's manslaughter and negligent homicide trial.

"Jordan Neely took his last breaths on the dirty floor of an uptown F train," the prosecutor, Dafna Yoran, told a rapt jury. Penny, she said, believed "Mr. Neely didn't deserve even the minimum modicum of humanity." At the time he died, Neely was 30 years old, homeless and suffering from mental illness.

"We pass people like Jordan Neely every day in our city. As New Yorkers we train ourselves not to engage, not to make eye contact, to pretend that people like Jordan Neely are not there," Yoran said. "On May 1 Neely demanded to be seen."

Neely entered a moderately crowded subway car at the 2nd Av stop and began making threats about hurting people, scaring many of the passengers, Yoran said. "His voice was loud and his words were threatening."

She pointed at Daniel Penny as she told the jury "This man, took it upon himself to take down Jordan Neely. To neutralize him."

30 seconds later, the train arrived at the next station, Broadway-Lafayette, and all the passengers left the train car, except two men who were helping Penny restrain Neely.

"No longer was there anyone left on the train for the defendant to protect," Yoran said. "He continued to choke Jordan Neely even after Mr. Neely had lost consciousness."

Penny has pleaded not guilty. His attorneys have said Neely was "insanely threatening" but Yoran said Penny's actions were unnecessarily reckless because he continued the chokehold for 5 minutes and 53 seconds after the subway car was empty of passengers. "A grasp that never changed," Yoran called it.

"The defendant did not intend to kill him. His initial intent was even laudable," Yoran said. "But under the law, deadly physical force such as a chokehold is permitted only when it is absolutely necessary and for only as long as is absolutely necessary and here the defendant went way too far."

Defense gives opening statement
Daniel Penny stood up to "protect thy neighbor" after Jordan Neely's threats echoed through the closed confines of a subway car that he spoke with "unhinged rage," defense attorney Thomas Kenniff said during an opening statement Friday.

"This is a case about a young man who did for others what we would want someone to do for us," Kenniff said. "It doesn't make him a hero, but it doesn't make him a killer."

Penny was on the F train headed to 23rd street to swim at the gym when a "seething, psychotic Jordan Neely storms on and announces his presence," the defense lawyer said, "Neely whips his jacket over his head and slams it to the ground with such force that even those who don't see it hear it."

The defense said things on the train escalated from "concern to fear" as they sought to portray Neely as far scarier than a prosecutor described in her opening statement.

"Neely sets his sights on a bench of female passengers," Kenniff said. "Danny sees a mother barricading her son behind a baby stroller in fear of Mr. Neely."

Penny heard Neely say "I will kill" and the defense said there was no opportunity for him to deescalate or stop Neely from the harm he was threatening.

"What Danny does do is leap into action," Kenniff said. Borrowing from "a bit" of martial arts training he received in the Marine Corps, Penny put Neely into a chokehold without intending to kill him but, the defense said, to hold him until police arrived.

"His conduct was consistent with someone who values human life and that's why he was trying to protect it so fiercely," the defense attorney said.

Kenniff insisted his client "does not want to use any more force than is necessary" but Neely "aggressively resisted" while in Penny's grip. He said Penny thought Neely, who was unarmed, might have a weapon as he waited for police.

"The evidence will show that this struggle did indeed between 5 and 6 minutes," but Kenniff said Penny "was not squeezing." Instead, the defense suggested Neely's death may have been caused by cardiac arrest, a genetic condition or some other reason that was not asphyxiation. The defense said risk of Neely's death was not something Penny could have perceived or anticipated.


Body-camera footage shown for 1st time
The first witness, a New York City police officer, was among those who tried unsuccessfully to revive Neely. The officer, Teodoro Tejada, testified that Neely did not have a pulse.

The jury saw the officer's body-worn camera footage that captured the attempts to save Neely and showed his lifeless body on the subway floor. When searched for weapons, the only thing officers found in Neely's pockets was a muffin. Nothing else was found in the jacket, Tejada confirmed.

Penny is heard saying, "I put him out," when the officer asked what happened.

To prosecutors, the footage -- which had not been seen publicly until now -- is evidence Penny disregarded Neely's basic humanity.

Jurors attentively studied the video that shows officers frantically trying to revive Neely. At one point, a juror had her hand over her mouth watching as the camera bounced when Tejada joined the chest compressions. Neely's body is seen splayed on the subway floor, sneakers, jeans and grimy, white T-shirt still on.

On cross-examination, Kenniff asked if the officer responded to any calls "of a white male causing any trouble," which Tejada confirmed he did not. The defense also used Tejada's testimony to suggest to the jury Penny did not behave like a criminal by fleeing the scene.

"Did he appear cooperative?" the lawyer asked.

"Yes," the officer replied.

"It didn't appear that he had anything to hide?" Kenniff asked.

"No," Tejada said.

Protesters rally outside courthouse
The sounds of a sidewalk protest over the death of Jordan Neely were audible in the 13th floor courtroom. Protesters were heard calling Penny "subway strangler."

The judge said he would instruct jurors to ignore "noise outside the courthouse."

Penny, in a slate blue suit, strode confidently into the courtroom and took his seat at the defense table.

Members of Neely's family are seated with the spectators.

"I loved Jordan. And I want justice for Jordan Neely. I want it today. I want justice for everybody and I want justice for Jordan Neely," his uncle, Christopher Neely, said before entering court.

Before opening statements, Judge Maxwell Wiley granted a defense request to allow some statements eyewitnesses to the May 1, 2023 chokehold made to police that were captured on body worn cameras.

One witness, a Ms. Rosario, was captured on body worn camera 15 minutes after the incident aboard the F train. "I can see most of that statement coming in as an excited utterance," Wiley said. He declined to allow a part of her statement in which an officer is heard asking whether she thought Neely was on drugs.

Most of the passengers who were aboard the train and who witnessed the event are expected to testify at trial