A Marine veteran who put an agitated subway rider in a chokehold on a New York subway has been acquitted in the man’s death. A Manhattan jury cleared Daniel Penny on Monday of criminally negligent homicide charges.
— A Marine veteran who used a chokehold on an agitated subway rider was acquitted on Monday in a death that became a prism for differing views about public safety, valor and vigilantism.
A Manhattan jury delivered the verdict, clearing Daniel Penny of criminally negligent homicide in Jordan Neely’s death last year. A more serious manslaughter charge was dismissed earlier in deliberations because the jury deadlocked on that count.
Both charges were felonies and carried the possibility of prison time.
Penny, 26, gripped Jordan Neely around the neck for about six minutes in a chokehold that other subway passengers partially captured on video.
Penny’s lawyers said he was protecting himself and other subway passengers from a volatile, mentally ill man who was making alarming remarks and gestures. The defense also disputed a city medical examiner’s finding that the chokehold killed Neely.
Prosecutors said Penny reacted far too forcefully to someone he perceived as a peril, not a person.
The case amplified many American fault lines, among them race, politics, crime, urban life, mental illness and homelessness. Neely was Black. Penny is white.
There were sometimes dueling demonstrations outside the courthouse, and high-profile Republican politicians portrayed Penny as a hero while prominent Democrats attended Neely’s funeral.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
— Jurors began Monday to weigh whether to convict Marine veteran Daniel Penny of criminally negligent homicide after they deadlocked last week on a more serious charge in the case surrounding a chokehold on a New York City subway train.
