Liberals Furious After Daniel Penny Acquitted in NYC Subway Choking Case

Marine veteran Daniel Penny was acquitted in the death of homeless subway rider Jordan Neely on Monday, spurring outrage from liberals on social media.

A Manhattan jury found Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide, a charge that carried a maximum sentence of four years. The more serious second-degree manslaughter charge, which carried a maximum sentence of 15 years, was dismissed last week by Judge Maxwell Wiley after jurors twice told the court they were deadlocked on the issue.

Penny, a 26-year-old Marine veteran and architecture student, was charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the May 2023 strangulation death of Neely on a Manhattan subway car. Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with schizophrenia, who had an active warrant for his arrest time, had boarded the train and yelled death threats while high on a type of synthetic marijuana known as K2. Penny grabbed Neely from behind in a chokehold during the incident and Neely later died.

The high-profile case sparked debate about public safety, mental illness and homelessness on NYC’s subway system. Penny’s defense argued that he was protecting others on the subway who were threatened by Neely’s outburst, and prosecutors argued that Penny acted with excessive force and his actions led to Neely’s death.

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Liberal commentators reacted to the jury’s verdict on Monday by suggesting that racism and bias against the homeless and the poor influenced the jury’s decision.

“Imagine, imagine if Jordan Neely had been white and Daniel Penny was black. Imagine what some of the people defending Penny today would say. Just imagine,” former MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan wrote.

“Everything leading up to and following the lynching of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway train by Daniel Penny could have been and should have been prevented.” Tiffany Cabancouncil member for NYC Council District 22 in Queens, New York, wrote on Bluesky.

“Jordan Neely deserved better than the violence of being denied access to stable housing and health care and then dehumanized for it. Jordan Neely deserved better than the systems that allow and justify extrajudicial white supremacist violence against black people,” she added. .

“Jordan Neely was 30 years old and struggled with mental illness, drug addiction and homelessness. He was performing in the NYC subways Danial Perry (sic) strangled Mr. Neely to death. A judge – not a jury – found Penny not guilty of anything whatever I don’t get it,” actress and activist Mia Farrow also wrote. In a response, she noted that Penny was white and Neely was black.

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“A confirmation, not that one was really needed, that our society doesn’t see homeless people as people,” Jack Mirkinson, senior editor for The Nation. wrote on Bluesky.

“I’m sick to my stomach at the sheer jubilation over on Twitter right now that Daniel Penny got away with murdering Jordan Neely, an unhoused black man with mental health issues. It’s disgusting,” Brooklyn Dad Defiant, a popular account with over 385,000 followers, sent to Bluesky.

“That Daniel Penny and Daniel Perry and Kyle Rittenhouse and George Zimmerman are all walking around freely in the most disease-ridden nation in the world is something that calls for a reckoning,” Activist Joe Katz wrote.

“Daniel Penny is a racist, classist, skilled killer. He should face infamy forever, regardless of what a court does or doesn’t do to him,” Tim Wise, senior fellow at the African American Policy Forum, wrote to X after the judge dismissed the more serious charge against Penny. The post attracted over 4 million views over the weekend.

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Several other liberals on Bluesky made a connection between the recent murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and Penny’s acquittal.

“Guess we can call off hunt for CEO assassin, security guard killing is legal in NYC,” another Bluesky account with almost 47,000 followers.

Black Lives Matter activists in New York previously threatened to protest if Penny was acquitted.

After Penny’s acquittal, New York BLM co-founder Hawk Newsome told reporters“We need some black guards.”

“People want to jump up and choke us and kill us for being loud? How about we do the same when they try to oppress us?” he added.

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Fox News’ Michael Ruiz, CB Cotton and Grace Taggart contributed to this report.