Controversial "vigilante" NYC killing of autistic black man

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At least 11 protesters were arrested as they clashed with authorities in New York City on Monday night, during demonstrations over the killing of Jordan Neely, who was choked to death on the F train earlier this month.

Crowds of protesters gathered outside the subway station in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood where Neely was killed on May 1, CBS New York reported. Authorities stopped traffic in the surrounding area and made several arrests, taking some protesters into custody who were bleeding from their heads, according to the news station. Police estimated that more than 150 people were involved in the demonstration.

NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey acknowledged protesters' right to demonstrate over "the senseless death" of Neely, but said at a news conference late on Monday that people in the crowd had broken the law, including by bringing weapons and dangerous substances to the demonstration. Maddrey noted specifically that authorities found a Molotov cocktail at the intersection where the crowd had gathered to protest.

For days, protesters have been calling for the arrest of Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old student and U.S. Marine Corps veteran who, in video footage lasting nearly three minutes, can be seen placing Neely in the chokehold that led to his death. Although the New York City medical examiner formally ruled 30-year-old Neely's death a homicide, Penny has not been criminally charged in the killing. The former Marine was questioned by police, but released the same day.

The case is expected to go before a grand jury this week, as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg faces growing pressure to file criminal charges against Penny. The grand jury will determine whether or not to bring charges.

Protesters have said they will continue to demonstrate until Penny is arrested. Monday's demonstration over Neely's death followed another over the weekend inside a subway station at 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue. Authorities say a crowd of about 100 people stormed the station, with some jumping onto the subway tracks in protest. At least 12 people were arrested during the demonstration, where multiple officers were injured, and police later released photos of six other alleged protesters wanted for criminal trespassing in connection with the incident.

Neely, a homeless man who performed in New York City as a Michael Jackson impersonator, had a history of mental illness as well as an arrest record, sources previously told CBS New York. Witnesses and Penny's attorney said that Neely was acting erratically, yelling about being tired and hungry, on the subway train when Penny, allegedly attempting to subdue him, placed Neely in the fatal restraint.

On Monday, Neely's family urged city officials to take action to move his case forward in a statement released by their attorneys.

They argued that Penny's "actions on the train," as well as his own statement released after the fact, "show why he needs to be in prison." A press release issued on Penny's behalf by his attorney last week said the former Marine "never intended to harm Mr. Neely and could not have foreseen his untimely death," calling the deadly chokehold "a tragic incident on the NYC subway."

Michael Bachner, the former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, told CBS Mornings that a grand jury could potentially find that Penny acted in self defense when he restrained Neely on the subway.

"I think what happened is, things got really out of control. But horrible accidents can sometimes turn into a manslaughter," Bachner said. "The testimony of other people on the train, how endangered they may have felt, how heightened and really kind of scary and aggressive the whole situation was, that could lead to the conclusion that he acted in self defense."

It was a Monday afternoon and a 30-year-old man was ranting on an F train headed through Manhattan. He was a regular on the subway, once a gifted Michael Jackson impersonator, but he was also troubled. City workers had tried to help him for years.

Inside the same car was a 24-year-old Marine veteran. After the military, he had dropped out of college, posting online about feeling “completely unfulfilled,” and now he was looking for a bartending job in the city.

Their encounter, captured on video by another passenger, has once again revealed the deep fault lines in the ways New Yorkers, and Americans beyond, view race, homelessness, crime and how some people seem to be treated differently by the police. The veteran, Mr. Penny, who is white, was questioned by the police, but has not been charged with a crime for killing Mr. Neely, who was Black.

Was this a citizen trying to stop someone from hurting others? Or an overreaction to a common New York encounter with a person with mental illness?

As investigators examine the moments before Mr. Neely’s death, friends and family told of the slain man’s sunny and upbeat demeanor as he struggled after his mother’s murder when he was a teenager. More recently, he seemed in the grip of serious mental illness and had occasional outbursts of violence.

Less is known of Mr. Penny, who spent most of the last several years outside New York.

Mr. Neely’s childhood was abruptly derailed when he was 14. He lived with his mother, Christie Neely, and her boyfriend in an apartment in Bayonne, N.J.

In 2007, Ms. Neely disappeared. Her body was found stuffed in a suitcase in the Bronx.

She had been strangled; her boyfriend was charged with murder.

“The relationship had been crazy,” Mr. Neely testified at the boyfriend’s trial when he was 19. “A fight every day.”

Mr. Neely attended Washington Irving High School in Manhattan, where classmates were aware of his loss. Perhaps to deflect from talking about the painful experience, he leaned into his childhood love of Michael Jackson, which by then had grown into a fine imitation.

“Everyone called him Michael Jackson,” said Wilson Leon, 30, a classmate. “The Michael Jackson of Washington Irving.”

“He would be very passionate about dancing,” Mr. Leon said, “very good behavior with the teachers.”

But Mr. Neely dropped out, his family said this week. In later years, he turned up on social media, executing highly choreographed Jackson impersonations in the subways, dressed like the performer in his prime.

Mr. Leon happened upon his old friend’s performances — “sometimes 42nd Street, sometimes the L train,” he said. “We would say hi to each other.”

But Mr. Neely had others watching him, concerned for his safety.

He was well known for years to the social work teams that reach out to homeless people on the subways, and had hundreds of encounters with them, according to an employee of the Bowery Residents’ Committee, a nonprofit organization that does subway outreach for the city.

Mr. Neely was on what outreach workers refer to as the “Top 50” list — a roster maintained by the city of the homeless people living on the street whom officials consider most urgently in need of assistance and treatment. He was taken to hospitals numerous times, both voluntarily and involuntarily, said the employee, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss his history.

Mr. Neely racked up more than three dozen arrests. Many were of the sort that people living on the street often accrue while homeless, like turnstile-jumping or trespassing. But at least four were on charges of punching people, two of them in the subway system.

Outreach workers noted that Mr. Neely heavily used K2, the powerful, unpredictable synthetic marijuana. In June 2019, an outreach worker noticed that Mr. Neely had lost considerable weight and was sleeping upright. Around that time, he was reported to have banged on a booth agent’s door and threatened to kill her, according to the worker’s notes. Then he was gone.

At some point, Mr. Neely became a client of an Intensive Mobile Treatment team — one of the squads of mental health clinicians who minister to people in streets and shelters. In March 2020, the team had Mr. Neely taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was kept for a week, according to homeless-outreach records. It was not clear what contact the team had with him after that.

n November 2021, Mr. Neely’s aggression seemed to peak, when he punched a 67-year-old woman in the street on the Lower East Side, the police said. The woman suffered severe facial injuries, including a broken nose, according to court documents. He was charged with assault and, awaiting the resolution of his case, spent 15 months in jail, the police said, though his family said the stint was shorter.

He pleaded guilty on Feb. 9 of this year, in a carefully planned strategy between the city and his lawyers to allow him to get treatment and stay out of prison.

“Do you know what the goal is today?” the judge, Ellen M. Biben, asked at the hearing.

“Yes,” Mr. Neely replied.

“What is that goal?”

“To make it physically and mentally to the program.”

He was to go from court to live at a treatment facility in the Bronx, and stay clean for 15 months. In return, his felony conviction would be reduced. He promised to take his medication and to avoid drugs, and not to leave the facility without permission.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to turn things around, and we’re glad to give it to you,” Mary Weisgerber, a prosecutor, said.

“Thank you so much,” Mr. Neely replied.

But just 13 days later, he abandoned the facility. Judge Biben issued a warrant for his arrest.

In March, an outreach worker saw him in the subway, neatly dressed, calm and subdued, and got him a ride to a shelter in the Bronx. (The outreach workers typically do not check for arrest warrants when interacting with homeless people.) But a downward spiral followed.

On April 8, when outreach workers approached him in a subway car at the end of the line in Coney Island, Mr. Neely urinated in front of them. When an outreach worker went to call the police, according to a worker’s notes, Mr. Neely shouted, “Just wait until they get here, I got something for you, just wait and see.”

The following week, an outreach worker saw him in Coney Island and noted that he was aggressive and incoherent. “He could be a harm to others or himself if left untreated,” the worker wrote.

Two weeks later, he was riding an F train in SoHo for what would be the last time.

Less is known about Mr. Penny, six years out of high school, four of them spent in the Marines. He attended high school in West Islip, on the south shore of Long Island, and played lacrosse, the news site Gothamist reported. In the military, he received several ribbons and awards common in peacetime activity, according to his military records, and was promoted to sergeant before leaving active duty in 2021.

A person named Danny Penny with an identical military background posted on Harri.com, a website for those seeking work in the hospitality industry, that he had tried college, “felt completely unfulfilled” and “decided to drop out of school and backpack throughout Central America.”

He worked for several months, until last May, at a surf shop in North Carolina near the Marine base where he was last stationed, Camp Lejeune.

“He loves anything surfing related,” said Sam Santaniello, 19, who worked at the shop with Mr. Penny. “He’s a people person. He’s a very easygoing person. Not a lot stresses him out.”

Mr. Penny posted on the hospitality site that he dreamed of bartending in Manhattan.

“During the travels I rediscovered my love for interacting and connecting with people,” he wrote. “Being able to serve and connect with the most interesting and eccentric the world has to offer, is what I believe I am meant to do.”

More details will emerge describing the moments leading up to the chokehold on the train. But one thing seems clear: The maneuver resembled one Mr. Penny almost certainly was taught in the Marines.

“These choking techniques, if applied properly, are a fast and safe way to knock out the enemy,” a sergeant said in an article on the Marines website.

New Marines are trained to apply a “blood choke,” which, when done properly, cuts off blood and oxygen to the brain in as little as eight seconds. But it is imperative in a blood choke to not squeeze the person’s windpipe, which could lead to injury or worse, according to training documents.

On the F train on May 1, Juan Alberto Vazquez, a freelance journalist, began recording video after Mr. Penny had placed Mr. Neely in a headlock.

It is also unclear whether Mr. Neely and Mr. Penny interacted before the encounter, but Mr. Penny and the other riders on the train would not have known about Mr. Neely’s history of arrests.

Mr. Penny held Mr. Neely down. The restrained man thrashed and kicked for at least two minutes before becoming limp. Two men hovered over the action, helping to pin down Mr. Neely.

“You don’t have to catch a murder charge,” another passenger can be heard saying on the video. “You got a hell of a chokehold, man.”

It is unknown whether Mr. Penny was attempting the blood choke he had learned a few years earlier. The moment when Mr. Neely should have lost consciousness — after eight seconds or so — had long passed.

One witness, Johnny Grima, said he entered the subway car while Mr. Penny was still choking Mr. Neely but after Mr. Neely had stopped moving. “When they let him go, Jordan’s eyes were open, staring out into space and he was limp,” said Mr. Grima, 38, a formerly homeless man who lives in the Bronx and did not know Mr. Neely.

In the video, as Mr. Penny lets go and stands up, Mr. Grima can be heard saying, “Don’t leave him on his back, though, man, he might choke on his own spit if you put him on his back — put him on his side.”

One of the men who had been holding Mr. Neely down complies with the request, rolling Mr. Neely onto his side. While he does so, Mr. Penny fetches a baseball cap from under a subway seat, which he had apparently dropped in the struggle, and puts it back on.

Six hundred miles away, Mr. Penny’s surfing friend, Mr. Santaniello, watched the video like countless others. He could only guess at Mr. Penny’s mind-set: “Knowing Danny and knowing his intentions, it was to help others around him.”

Subway riders and transit workers called for help. Paramedics took Mr. Neely to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A Marine veteran will be charged with manslaughter in the second degree in the chokehold death of a man on a subway train, the Manhattan district attorney's office said in a statement to CBS News on Thursday. Jordan Neely, a former Michael Jackson impersonator who was homeless, died after being put in a chokehold by Daniel Penny earlier this month.

Penny is expected to turn himself in to authorities, CBS New York reported. Prosecutors expect Penny to be arraigned Friday.

"We cannot provide any additional information until he has been arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court," a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office said in the statement.

New York Mayor Eric Adams acknowledged that Neely's death "devastated his family and shocked his fellow New Yorkers," and Adams had urged people not to rush to judgment.

"One thing we can say for sure: Jordan Neely did not deserve to die," Adams said Wednesday during an address at City Hall, "and all of us must work together to do more for our brothers and sisters struggling with serious mental illness."

“I don’t have food, I don’t have anything to drink, I am sick and tired. … I don’t care about going to jail and getting a life sentence. … I am ready to die.”

This was an act of self-defense. Should have been softer, but Neely is more responsible for threatening other people's lives than the people trying to stop him threatening other people's lives. If he was too mentally unfit to be responsible, then he should not have been out on the streets to begin with.

Former U.S. Marine Daniel Penny turned himself in to New York City police on Friday in connection with the chokehold death of Jordan Neely aboard a subway train.

Penny, 24, was placed under arrest for second-degree manslaughter and handcuffed. He appeared in court under police guard and did not enter a plea.

Assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass said prosecutors conducted a "thorough investigation" that included interviews with eyewitnesses, 911 callers and responding officers before moving forward with the criminal charge.

Penny held Neely for several minutes, and at some point Neely stopped moving, but Penny continued to hold him for a period of time, Steinglass said.

Penny remained on the scene to talk with police, Steinglass noted.

Defense attorney Thomas Kenniff said Penny "has been fully cooperative throughout this process."

Kenniff told reporters that Penny "turned himself in here voluntarily and with the sort of dignity and integrity that is characteristic of his dignity of service to this grateful nation."

Neely family attorney Lennon Edwards is advocating for second-degree murder charges, saying Penny should have known Neely could die after seeing him struggle during the chokehold.

Penny "acted with indifference," Neely family attorney Donte Mills added at a news conference hours after Penny turned himself in. "And we can't let that stand."

“For everybody saying, 'I've been on the train and I've been afraid before, and I can't tell you what I would've done in that situation.' I'm gonna tell you -- ask how you can help," Mills said. "Please, don't attack. Don't choke, don't kill, don't take someone's life."

Attorneys for Penny said in a statement Thursday night that Penny "risked his own life and safety, for the good of his fellow passengers," and "the unfortunate result was the unintended and unforeseen death of Mr. Neely."

Neely's death following the chokehold was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner's office.

The Rev. Al Sharpton in a statement Friday called the charges against Penny "just step one in justice."

"Let’s not forget that there were three people restraining him, and it is vital that the two others are also held accountable for their actions," Sharpton said. "The justice system needs to send a clear, loud message that vigilantism has never been acceptable."

The judge on Friday approved releasing Penny on bond. Penny's attorney said the former Marine lives in New York City and is in college, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in architecture.

Kenniff noted, "There is nothing less indicative of flight risk than someone voluntarily surrendering."

The district attorney's office decided to move forward with charges without first going to a grand jury. The case will still be presented to a grand jury in the coming days as prosecutors work to secure an indictment, prosecutors said Friday.

Is that enough for someone who choked somebody out on the train and took their life?” attorney Lennon Edwards asked at a news conference Friday afternoon hours after Daniel Penny turned himself in at the 5th Precinct stationhouse in Manhattan.

Edwards said Neely's family wanted Penny charged with murder because he could have chosen any other technique but “intentionally chose a technique to use that is designed to cut off air.”

“That’s a choice that he made and he did it intentionally. So we believe that the conviction should be for murder because that’s intentional," he told reporters.

Officials have not said how they settled on the manslaughter charge.

On his way out, Penny was surrounded by his defense team and detectives, and several people reached to shake his hand.

While charges against Penny were being considered, numerous activists, journalists and politicians, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, rushed to declare Neely’s death a murder — or even a lynching, because Neely was Black and Penny is white.

Initial accounts portrayed Neely, a Michael Jackson impersonator, as a troubled but harmless man who was killed, in the words of one writer, for “making people uncomfortable” by shouting about his desperation. But soon, other reports revealed disturbing aspects of Neely’s history: a string of violent assaults, often on the subway.

In 2021, Neely was arrested for punching a 67-year-old woman in the face, breaking her nose and shattering her orbital bone. After 15 months in detention, he pleaded guilty and was placed on probation with a requirement to live in a treatment facility. But he left after two weeks. At the time of his death, there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest. Shortly before the fatal encounter on the subway, an outreach worker warned that Neely could be “a harm to himself or others.”

Some argue that this background is irrelevant to what happened on the train, since Penny did not know Neely’s history. But it’s clear that other passengers felt Neely could be dangerous. A video shot by freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vasquez shows one other man, possibly two, helping the ex-Marine restrain Neely. Vasquez said he saw Neely’s actions as implying possible violence; while he felt the ex-Marine “went too far,” he also faulted the delayed police response.

Yet, ironically, the protesters who have disrupted subway service to express outrage at Neely’s death also object to increased police presence on the subways.

Many progressives, in social media discussions and elsewhere, seem to take the view that aggressive, threatening, even violent behavior by mentally ill people is something subway passengers should accept as a fact of life. Such attitudes only feed right-wing denunciations of arrogant “liberal elites.”

It’s entirely possible that, while restraining Neely was justified, Penny’s use of force was reckless and excessive. But we should wait for a jury to decide — and wait for the facts. Too many reports have engaged in reckless speculation and focused on race while omitting relevant details. The other passenger holding Neely down was also Black — which is unrelated to the question of excessive force, but relevant to claims of a racial motive for restraining Neely.

The real tragedy, as Mayor Eric Adams has said, is that the current system makes it extremely difficult to hold severely mentally ill people in safe facilities when they cannot make decisions for themselves. This reality is obscured by rhetoric that portrays people like Neely as solely victims of capitalism and racism. Ultimately, that rhetoric victimizes both people with mental illness and mainly working-class subway riders who have a right to expect safety.

It’s entirely possible that, while restraining Neely was justified, Penny’s use of force was reckless and excessive. But we should wait for a jury to decide — and wait for the facts.

Attorneys for Daniel Penny, the man charged with manslaughter in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway this week, have raised over $1.3 million for his legal defense fund.

Over 28,000 donors have contributed to the fundraiser on GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site, since its launch on Tuesday by Penny's lawyers.

Penny's attorney Thomas Kenniff of Raiser & Kenniff, P.C., claimed that his client was unwelcome on the better-known GoFundMe crowdfunding site, saying during a radio interview on the Cats & Cosby show, "GoFundMe doesn't want people like my client to raise money." Using a lesser-known website can have its flaws, however, as evidenced when the GiveSendGo page was temporarily disabled on Saturday amid heavy traffic.

Sounds like the Rittenhouse and Derek Chauvin cases all over again.

Law students graduating from the City University of New York (CUNY) turned their backs on New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) in protest against him as he gave their commencement address on Friday.

Video posted on social media showed many of the graduates standing silently and facing the back of the room as Adams spoke. The mayor also received some boos and shouting.

“We have a lot of challenges, a lot of things that it needs discipline. And just as you see these graduates here, I know what it is to protest,” he said, which was followed by some yells back at him.

Adams has faced some controversy in the past week for his response to the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old mentally ill homeless man who was killed in a subway station earlier this month by Marine veteran Daniel Penny.

Adams received criticism for his first comments on the subject not being to denounce Penny’s actions and emphasizing the rights of subway riders to act in some situations. He later called the incident a “tragedy that never should have happened” and vowed to take action to support mental health.

The New York Daily News reported the protest against Adams at the graduation ceremony came a day after some of the university’s students and professors rallied against proposed cuts in Adams’s budget. Comptroller Brad Lander estimated the cuts would cost CUNY 235 faculty and staff positions.

Adams also received applause at some points of his speech, including when he said, “I’m the mayor because I know how to speak on behalf of the countless number of people in this city.”

Big difference

Geotz was physically threatened by 4 men

There was no evidence Penny was in any way threatened by Neely