The Daniel Penny trial isnt just about New York. Its a litmus test for the future of American justice.
On the 13th floor of Manhattan Supreme Court, 26-year-old Penny, a Marine veteran, stands charged with manslaughter in the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless black man who had been threatening passengers in a crowded subway car in May 2023.
Penny, who is white, faces 20 years in prison.
This case reflects so much of what plagues America: soft-on-crime policies that have average citizens in fear for their safety; the far-lefts insistence that leaving homeless, drug-addicted, mentally ill people on the streets is compassionate; and the intransigent falsehood that this nation runs on white supremacy — ergo, Daniel Pennys actions that day embody nothing less than white Americas belief that black lives dont matter.
All brought to us by feckless DA Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who has reduced violent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, and who somehow saw President Donald Trumps hush-money payments to a porn star worthy of prosecution.
Bragg has racialized the criminal justice system in New York — a city like no other, in which people of every imaginable race, creed, color and socioeconomic class interact daily. As they did in that very subway car. Its a multiracial witness list, and what isnt in doubt is that Jordan Neely scared commuters who thought theyd seen everything.
The Daniel Penny trial isnt just about New York. Its a litmus test for the future of American justice.
26-year-old Penny, a Marine veteran, stands charged with manslaughter in the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless black man who had been threatening passengers in a crowded subway car in May 2023.
Juan Alberto Vasquez, a 59-year-old reporter from Mexico, said he went into alert mode the moment Neely boarded the train. He told police that Neely reminded him of Frank James, the man who randomly shot ten commuters in a Brooklyn subway car in 2022.
Moriela Sanchez, a teenager from Harlem, told a grand jury that she did not believe Penny was lynching Neely, as the left would have us believe.
A key bit of that testimony:
Q: Did it appear to you that the white man was squeezing the black mans neck?
Sanchez: No. He was trying to protect other people so that [Neely] wouldnt put [his] hands on nobody.
Neely had a long history of assaulting strangers on the street and in the subway — including breaking the nose and orbital bone of a 68-year-old woman.
In fact, Neely had more arrests than birthdays: 44 by age 30, including for indecent exposure.
He was on the citys Top 50 list of homeless people in dire need of help and, in 2015, was arrested for attempting to kidnap a 7-year-old girl. Neely was reportedly seen dragging the child down a street.
But you wont see mention of that in most coverage of this trial – because in Braggs worldview, and that of the left-leaning media, Neely was just an occasional Michael Jackson street-performer who fell through the cracks.
In January, New York magazine ran a soft-focus cover story, headlined: Finding Jordan Neely.
It was a love letter to an urban menace, with writer Lisa Miller musing that Neelys threats to terrified passengers that day were perhaps a plea to be back in a place where meals and medications were provided, perhaps a sign of his exhaustion or anguish, perhaps an admission of defeat.
Or, perhaps, a prelude to harming people, as Neely had done many, many times before.
Naturally, Al Sharpton, New York Citys original race-baiter, eulogized Neely.
We cant live in a city, Sharpton said, where you can choke me to death with no provocation, no weapon, no threat.
This case reflects so much of what plagues America: soft-on-crime policies that have average citizens in fear for their safety; the far-lefts insistence that leaving homeless, drug-addicted, mentally ill people on the streets is compassionate; and the intransigent falsehood that this nation runs on white supremacy.
To be clear: No one deserves to die as Neely did.
But New Yorkers cant live in a city where police are scant, or afraid to intervene for fear that they, too, will be brought up on charges of hate crimes, or where the elderly, children and women are raped, assaulted, and murdered in broad daylight — as 23-year-old Leslie Torres was last month, apparently strangled to death outside a Times Square hotel at 1.30 in the afternoon.
But for Sharpton and compatriot Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who positioned herself front row at Neelys funeral, violent crime is so often adjudged solely through race.
Jordan Neely was murdered, AOC posted on X, two days after his death. The murderer gets protected [with] passive headlines [and] no charges. Its disgusting.
Whats disgusting is pampered politicians fanning racial animus and calling Penny, before he was ever arrested or charged, a murderer.
Even Mayor Eric Adams, himself a former police officer, implied that Penny should likely not be charged with a crime.
Any loss of life is tragic, Adams said in the immediate aftermath. However, we do know there were serious mental health issues in play here.
As were drug issues and, according to Neelys aunt, a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The autopsy showed Neely was high on K2, a powerful synthetic cannabinoid that can cause paranoia, hallucinations and cardiac arrest.
New York Citys medical examiner has refused to say how much K2 was in Neelys system at time of death. Seems relevant to me.
Barring the prosecution hiding some piece of bombshell evidence — were in week four of a likely six-week trial — Daniel Penny should be found not guilty.
Witness testimony, so far, supports this.
The basic facts: After 2 p.m. on Monday, May 1, 2023, Neely boarded a northbound F train at the heavily trafficked Second Avenue station.
Alethea Gittings, a retired medical administrator and daily subway rider from Brooklyn, was in the same car.
She testified that, as far as she could remember, Neely started yelling: I dont give a damn. Ill kill a motherf***er… Im ready to die.
She described his tone as very loud, very menacing, very disturbing, and said it left her scared sh**less.
Neely had more arrests than birthdays: 44 by age 30, including for indecent exposure. He was on the citys Top 50 list of homeless people in dire need of help and, in 2015, was arrested for attempting to kidnap a 7-year-old girl.
But you wont see mention of that in most coverage of this trial - because in worldview of the left-leaning media, Neely was just an occasional Michael Jackson street-performer who fell through the cracks.
Caedryn Schrunk, a senior brand manager at Nike, was also in the subway car. She testified that, as a daily subway rider, she had never been so terrified.
Everyone was frozen, she said. I was fearful, truly, that was the moment I was going to die.
Schrunk testified that Neely was approaching a mother who was shielding her child with a stroller. Neelys odor, she said, took over the subway… His sweatpants were visibly soiled.
She suspected he was having a mental breakdown and was likely on drugs. Ive never seen a human in that state, she added.
Thats when Penny is said to have taken Neely down, restraining him in a chokehold. Two other civilians, one a black man, helped keep Neely on the floor until police arrived.
NYPD Sergeant Carl Johnson was among the first on the scene. He testified that neither he nor any of his officers performed CPR on Neely — not because the NYPD is racist, but because Neely was so obviously filthy and potentially diseased.
He was an apparent drug user, Johnson said of Neely. He was very dirty. I didnt want [my officers] to get… hepatitis. If [Neely] did wake up, he would have been vomiting. I didnt want my officers to do that.
Bodycam video shown in court revealed that Neely still had a pulse when first responders arrived. Penny remained on the scene the entire time.
Alethea Gittings testified that she came back to thank Mr. Penny for what he had done.
The fear of potentially fatal assault is one that every woman, in an increasingly lawless New York City, can relate to. As Lauri Sitro, the mother of that five-year-old boy, testified: I was scared for my son. Its not like you can take a 5-year-old and run to the next train. I felt very relieved when Daniel Penny had stopped [Neely].
Yet the prosecution runs on the race card.
I am not a white supremacist, Penny told the New York Post last year. This had nothing to do with race.
Will a jury see it that way? If theres one thing the election of Trump augurs, its that ordinary Americans are rejecting the idea that everything in this country should be reduced to race. We are exhausted by the notion that white people are inherently evil and bigoted.
The Daniel Penny trial seems in pursuit of a cause, not a crime. And that cause is propping up the myth of an intractably racist America.