Daniel Penny trial for manslaughter of Jordan Neely

Source: Spencer Platt / Getty

Jordan Neely was killed aboard an NYC subway train in May 2023 by a white marine who calls himself trying to play hero. BOSSIP reported extensively on the incident in which that white man, Daniel Penny, applied a chokehold for so long that Neely eventually stopped breathing and died in front of a train car of commuters.

After being questioned and released, the community outrage against Penny rose to a fever pitch and he was eventually arrested and charged with manslaughter. The criminal trial against the Marine began four weeks ago and new testimonies are proving to be very revealing about the events of that day.

Source: Anadolu / Getty [Daniel Penny pictured above]

According to ABC News, a witness named Eric Gonzalez was not only on the train but he intervened with hopes that Penny would release the death grip that he was employing.

“I said, ‘I will grab his hands so you can let go,’” Gonzalez told the jury. “Just giving him a different option to hold his arm — well, to restrain him until the police came.”

Gonzalez was holding Neely’s wrists while Penny had his arms locked around Neely’s neck. He testified that he physically felt the moment Neely’s body went limp.

“I tried to shake Jordan Neely to get a response out of him, feel for a pulse, and then I walked away,” Gonzalez said.

That same witness also admitted that he lied to police when he said that Neely tried to hit him.

Gonzalez alleged in his initial interview that he Nelly had tried to hit him, and that’s why Penny was restraining Neely and alleged that when he and Daniel Penny had let go of Neely, Neely responded and said he was okay.

All of those details were made up, Gothamist: reports Gonzalez admitted.

“I was trying to justify my actions for me having my hands on him,” he said.

SIGH.

It was not Daniel Penny’s place nor job to take a man’s life that day on the train. He’s not a police officer or a law enforcement agent. There are always loud and possibly disturbed people on New York subway trains, that’s not a legal justification for killing them.