Marine Corps veteran Daniel Penny blames the failures of the criminal justice system that forced him into a felony encounter with vagrant Jordan Neely on a crowded subway train in Manhattan, where he was brought to trial in the case. He blamed prosecutor Alvin Bragg.
penny, 26, Speaking to FOX News' Jeanine Pirro In his first interview since a jury acquitted him of manslaughter, he said prosecutors seemed at a loss.
“This clearly showed their arrogance in that they don't understand what's actually going on and what society's perception of crime actually is.” [is]” he said. “And no matter what anyone says on the news, it's pretty prevalent. It just showed their arrogance that they were trying to get me to do something.
“I'm certainly disappointed. I don't mean to be political,” he told Pirro. “These policies are clearly not working and are not supported by the public or the general public.
“Yet their egos are too big to even admit that they were wrong, and they can't undo what they've done, because it would be political suicide for them,” Penny said. he said.
He said that when he returned from active military service and began living and studying in the five boroughs, he was surprised by how deteriorated the city's subway system had become.
“It's definitely different than what I remember before I joined the Marine Corps. Before the Marines got COVID, it was pretty tame and pretty safe,” he said. “I think I was completely innocent of everything that was going on.
“And I came here and I probably had a whole new perspective on what happened or the perception of safety here in New York,” Penny added.
Penny, who grew up in West Islip and served two tours in the Marine Corps, found herself in the middle of a subway frenzy on May 1, 2023, on her way home from class at City Tech in Brooklyn. He said he was there.
“Once the jacket was thrown, he didn't say anything before that. At least I don't remember him saying anything before that,” he said. “It was like that, really. There was a vacuum that I had never felt before in any situation.”
“We will monitor the situation as Neely begins screaming and threatening the straphanger, loudly demanding fast food and drinks from frightened passengers, and warning that he intends to kill someone. He said he took off his earphones. Go to jail.
“There was some contemplation in those 15 seconds,” Penny told Pirro. “Should I just wait? Should I get in another car? Should I move? But I saw the expressions on the faces of the mothers, the students, the other passengers, the women, the children.
“The threat was imminent and something had to be done,” he said. “[Passengers] People just sitting in chairs, hugging each other. They felt fixed, and I felt fixed too. I was nervous and scared. ”
From that moment on, he decided to take action.
“When we first hit the ground, he perched on my chest. He knocked the wind [out of] myself. I hit my head on the subway floor,” Penny told Pirro. “There is a moment of silence. A feeling of tension runs through my body.
“He seems shocked that someone did something. And it lasted like a second or two. And I'll do it, I'll do that one or two seconds and be done with it. “I was hoping for that,” he said. “That didn't happen… [Neely] I placed my feet on the ground and arched my back. He liked to pick me up and pedal my legs. ”
Penny, who called Neely “extraordinarily strong,” said she clung to him with her legs wrapped around him. He said he felt some of the tramp's strength came from inhaling the synthetic drug K-2.
“I look over my shoulder and say, ‘Where are the police?’ I’m tired, I’m tired,” he said. “I was swimming a mile every day, but I stayed still and couldn't believe his level of endurance.
“At some point the assault ended,” he said, and police arrived, but when detectives later took Neely in for questioning, they were not told that Neely had died.
Penny was later charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the incident. On Friday, with the jury hopelessly deadlocked on the top charge, prosecutors asked that the manslaughter charge be thrown out so that the jury could only deliberate on manslaughter.
On Monday, a jury acquitted Penny of that charge.
