‘I Just Couldn’t Sit Still’: Daniel Penny Speaks About Subway Chokehold, Death of Jordan Neely

Penny said he didn't intend to harm Neely but wanted to protect other passengers

Marine veteran Daniel Penny is walked out of the New York Police Department’s 5th Precinct in Lower Manhattan on his way to an arraignment on May 12, 2023. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

Daniel Penny, the Marine Corps veteran who is accused of killing homeless man Jordan Neely on a New York City subway, said he didn’t intend to take Neely’s life but to protect the frightened passengers from Neely.

Penny was charged with manslaughter after he was caught on video putting Neely in a chokehold on the floor of a northbound F train on May 1. The city’s medical examiner ruled Neely’s death a homicide, saying that he died because of “compression of neck.”

In a series of video clips released by Penny’s lawyers, the 24-year-old recounted what he called “a scary situation,” saying that he had to do something as Neely threatened to kill people on the train.

“The man stumbled on, he appeared to be on drugs, the doors closed, and he ripped his jacket off and threw it down at the people sitting next to me at my left,” Penny said in the video.

“I was listening to music at the time, and I took my headphones out to hear what he was yelling,” he continued. “The three main threats that he repeated over and over was ‘I’m going to kill you,’ ‘I’m prepared to go to jail for life,’ and ‘I’m willing to die.’”

Penny, who stands at 6 feet 2 inches tall, said he was intimidated by Neely, who was bigger than him and was shouting in the subway riders’ faces.

“There’s a common misconception that Marines don’t get scared. We’re actually taught, one of our core values is courage, and courage is not the absence of fear but how you handle fear,” he said. “I was scared for myself, but I looked around, I saw women and children. He was yelling in their faces saying these threats. I just couldn’t sit still.”

Neely’s Troubled Past

Neely, a 30-year-old subway busker, had a long history of severe mental illness. He was on New York City’s “Top 50” list of the homeless people most urgently in need of mental health care, according to The New York Times.

At the time of his death, Neely had been arrested dozens of times, including an attempted kidnapping of a 7-year-old girl in 2015, reported the New York Daily News. In November 2021, he punched a 67-year-old woman in the face as she was exiting a subway station. The woman suffered broken bones in her face after being knocked to the ground.

“Some people say I was trying to choke him to death, which is also not true. I was trying to restrain him,” Penny said. “You can see in the video there’s a clear rise and fall of his chest, indicating that he’s breathing. I’m trying to restrain him from being able to carry out the threats.”

Penny also dismissed reporting that he held Neely by his throat for 15 minutes.

“This is not true—between stops is only a couple of minutes. So the whole interaction lasted less than 5 minutes,” Penny explained.

Incident Was Not About Race

A 3-minute video of the deadly ordeal, recorded by a bystander on a cellphone, begins with Penny already holding Neely in a chokehold on the floor. Thirty seconds into the video, Neely began to struggle, prompting a third man to step in and help pin Neely to the floor.

More than two minutes into the recording, Neely started going limp, while another man could be heard off camera warning Penny, “You’re going to kill him now, he’s defecated on himself.” One of the men restraining Neely’s arm said it was an “old stain” on his pants.

Penny let go of Neely just before the video ended, at which point the homeless man could not respond when asked, “Can you hear me?”

Penny, who is white, said his action had nothing to do with race, noting that many of the subway riders he tried to protect that day were “people of color.”

“I didn’t see a black man threatening passengers, I saw a man threatening passengers, a lot of whom were people of color,” Penny said.

“A man who helped restrain Mr. Neely was a person of color,” he added. “A few days after the incident I read in the papers that a woman of color came out and called me a hero. I don’t believe that I’m a hero, but she was one of those people that I was trying to protect.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office is prosecuting former President Donald Trump, filed a second-degree manslaughter charge against Penny. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

“Jordan Neely should still be alive today, and my thoughts continue to be with his family and loved ones as they mourn his loss during this extremely painful time,” Bragg said in a statement.

Penny’s next court appearance is scheduled for July 17.