Daniel Penny Indicted By Grand Jury For Homicide Of Jordan Neely On F Train
Daniel Penny has been formally indicted for second-degree manslaughter by a grand jury. Penny, a 24 year-old ex-Marine, killed mentally homeless man Jordan Neely on a May 1st northbound F train. Neely had been yelling at passengers about being desperate before Penny wrestled him to the ground and applied a fatal carotid restraint (also known as a “blood choke”). Penny surrendered to the NYPD on May 12th before being released on a $100,000 bond. Penny claims he never intended to kill Neely during his restraint, and that the incident was far shorter than witness accounts that said he restrained Neely for 15 minutes.
| 16 Jun 2023 | 02:45
In a video released by his lawyers, Daniel Penny discusses the case against him and previews his defense. He has been formally indicted by a grand jury--on second-degree manslaughter charges--for the fatal chokehold of Jordan Neely, a mentally ill homeless man yelling about being hungry on an F train May 1st. (
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Daniel Penny, the 24 year-old ex-Marine that has caused a firestorm for applying a fatal chokehold to 30 year-old Jordan Neely–a mentally ill homeless man yelling about being hungry–on a northbound F Train May 1st, has been formally indicted for second-degree manslaughter. This follows his surrender to the authorities on May 12th, when he was released on a $100,000 bond.
Neely’s death has elicited intensely polarized and emotional political responses from people in New York City and beyond, with left-leaning elected officials from the Democratic Party (including Governor Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, and Congresswoman Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez) denouncing the killing as an act of disturbing vigilantism, or as a racist modern-day lynching. In a prominent incident of protest, more than a dozen people denouncing the killing were arrested on a bevy of charges for blocking the subway at the 63rd Street-Lexington Ave. station on May 6th.
Meanwhile, grassroots conservative donors nationwide have made Penny a cause célèbre, raising more than $1.6 million for his legal defense and claiming his actions amounted to a form of public safety.
In a video taken by and posted by his lawyers on social media, Penny stated that he didn’t mean to kill Neely and referred to the incident as a “scary situation.” Acknowledging widely circulated witness accounts, Penny also said that “some people say that I was holding on to Mr. Neely for fifteen minutes.” However, he claimed that “this is not true–between stops is only a couple of minutes.” In his estimation, he had held Neely in a stranglehold for only five minutes.
He also claimed that the carotid restraint noticed by passengers–also known as a “blood choke”–the restraint is meant to cause temporary unconsciousness by applying pressure to the windpipe. It was intended to subdue Neely without killing him, he said. The NYPD has banned chokeholds since 1993. Additionally, the Justice Department views it as “inherently dangerous” due to potential complications resulting from a loss of oxygen to the brain, including death.