Daniel Penny is the former US Marine who was acquitted this past week of killing Jordan Neely on a New York City subway car in May of last year.
Some of you may think Penny is a hero.
You may believe the chokehold Penny clamped on Neely after Neely harassed and threatened the riders on the F train, deserved to be praised and not vilified.
Some of you may think Penny was nothing more than a white vigilante, who callously and capriciously took the life of a mentally disturbed black man. You may believe that if Jordan Neely was white, he’d still be alive today.
Here’s what I think.
The jurors found Penny not guilty of manslaughter, because they knew it wasn’t racism that killed Neely. Neely’s death was the result of a monumentally flawed New York social services and criminal justice system.
At Penny’s trial, it was revealed that Neely was on New York City’s top 50 list for “Homeless People at Most Risk.” Who even knew there was such a list.
He had been arrested 42 times for fare evasion, theft and assaulting three women. His autopsy revealed he had the dangerous drug K2 in his system.
Neely had a history of violence, mental instability and homelessness, yet somehow he was still on the streets, somehow he didn’t get the help he needed.
Some of you may say the trial was a monumental over reaction by the Manhattan District Attorney, who again demonstrated his soft-on-crime blindness to the chaotic conditions that subway riders face every day.
Neely boarded that F-train and was angry and threatening. He said he had no food, he had nothing to drink. He said he was tired and he said he didn’t care if he was going to go to jail.
Some of the witnesses who were on that train and who testified at the trial, described what it was like to sit there and watch what was happening.
One witness testified that Neely said, “Someone is going to die today.” Another witness testified she was scared “shitless”. Another told the jury she thought she was going to pass out from fear.
The prosecution tried to paint Daniel Penny as a Bernie Goetz-like subway vigilante, but the jurors weren’t buying it. Their own life experiences on the subway, gave them a much better understanding of what it’s like to be trapped in a subway car with a crazy person threatening to do you bodily harm.
Indeed everyone who rides the New York City subways knows what it’s like. Every trip has the potential of being terrifying and unsettling. It’s kinda like venturing into Dante’s seventh circle of hell where the outer ring houses murderers and other violent types.
You dutifully pay your fare, but as you pass through the turnstile, you watch the steady flow of riders who don’t. Put aside the $690 million in lost revenue to the MTA. “People are not going to feel safe if they see everybody breaking the rules before they even get on the subway” admits the MTA’s CEO Janno Lieber.
But the fare beating is only the starting point for dread as you descend into the subway.
Waiting for the train, you dare not stand too close to the edge the platform. Your eyes dart back and forth, scanning the scene for that one deranged person who could sneak up on you and push you onto the tracks.
When the subway screeches into the station, you survey each car, to see if anyone is stretched out on one of the seats. It’s not an uncommon sight, and when the doors open you are forced into making a split second decision whether to get on that car, race to another, or just hold out for the next train.
Even if there’s no one sleeping, urinating, or shouting incoherently in the car you’ve chosen, there’s no guarantee of a safe and peaceful ride. Someone can come crashing through those sliding doors between cars at any moment, your skin tingling with fear, the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end.
So you try to keep your head down and avoid any eye contact whatsoever, and pray that their rant won’t turn hostile and that you won’t be spit upon, punched or slashed.
The New York City subway system has become the home for too many dangerous and unpredictable people.
Daniel Penny was acquitted, because what took place on that train last year, was also the lived experiences of the seven women and five men on that Manhattan jury. It’s the lived experiences of the millions of New Yorkers that ride the subways every day. How it feels to be uneasy, every day. How it feels to be wary, to be on guard.
That’s what D.A. Alvin Bragg didn’t get, or doesn’t want to admit, when he put Daniel Penny on trial. Fortunately for Penny, the jury got it.
The New York City subway system is scary, it is dangerous and it is broken. What is also broken is a Manhattan D.A.’s office that tried to send to prison a man who came to the rescue of his fellow subway riders.
By saying not guilty, those jurors stood up for all the petrified people who ride the subways and who just want to make get to work or to return home alive.
What also emerged from the trial was the tragic life of Jordan Neely. He was turned back out onto the streets instead of getting the help he so desperately needed. It ultimately lead to his death.
Those 12 jurors saved Daniel Penny but who’s going to save the many other Jordan Neely’s?