A 30-minute police interview with Daniel Penny revealed he told officers he feared he would take advantage of the threat when Jordan Neely put him in a headlock last year. .
Penny, a 26-year-old Marine veteran who was studying architecture in New York City, is on trial for the death of Neely, a 30-year-old homeless drug abuser with schizophrenia who broke into a subway car and began shouting threats. .
NYPD Detectives Michael Medina and Brian McCarthy interviewed Penny immediately after the incident. They read Miranda warnings but did not tell Neely that Neely was dead.
Portions of the interview had been played during pretrial hearings, but the court released the entire tape last week after it became part of the public record at trial.
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Daniel Penny speaks with two NYPD detectives in an interrogation room at the Fifth Precinct Building in Manhattan in May 2023. (Manhattan District Attorney's Office)
Some experts believe Penny could take the witness stand in his own defense, but others believe that is a risky move that lawyers would want to avoid.
He has given multiple media interviews since the incident, but the video of the first interrogation contains the most candid comments he has made about the incident that have been made public.
NYPD Detectives Michael Medina and Brian McCarthy spoke with Penny at the Fifth Precinct building in Manhattan.
He was talking gibberish and they were pushing people away in front of trains and stuff.
After a few minutes of small talk, McCarthy read Penny her Miranda warnings. At that point, Penny was unaware that Neely had died as a result of strangulation.
He waives his right to a lawyer and spends the next 25 minutes discussing with New York detectives what happened that day on the F train.
Penny told investigators that she was on her way to the gym after class, where she was studying architecture in Brooklyn, when Penny boarded the train.
Daniel Penny walks down the hallway of Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. Penny, a Marine Corps veteran, was charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the 2023 death of Jordan Neely on the New York City subway. (Rashid Umar Abbasi/Fox News Digital)
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“A guy came in, took off his jacket and was like, 'I'm going to kill you all. I'm going to go to jail forever. I don't care,'” Penny said.
He said he looked at the person next to him and asked him to hold his cell phone. He took out his earphones. He then grabs Neely from behind and puts him in a headlock.
“It felt like I grabbed him from behind,” he said.
“Hmm,” interjected one of the detectives.
“Because he was acting like a madman, like a crazy person,” Penny continued. “So he was rolling around on the floor. And at that point the train stopped. I thought, 'Someone call the police,' but he's still rolling and going crazy. There were two other guys. Help him not go crazy. And that's when you guys came.”
Jordan Neely is pictured outside the Regal Cinemas on 8th Avenue and 42nd Street in New York's Times Square in 2009 before going to see the Michael Jackson movie “This Is It.” (Andrew Sabrich/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
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He later said that although he doesn't normally interact with “crackheads,” Neely's threats made him feel the need to intervene.
“He was like, 'If I don't get this, this, and this, I'm going to go to jail forever,'” Penny said. “He was talking gibberish and they're pushing people away in front of trains and stuff.”
The year before Neely's death, more than 20 people were thrown onto subway tracks in New York City. FOX5 New York These incidents have been previously reported, but many involve homeless suspects suffering from mental illness.
Screenshot of bystander video showing Jordan Neely being strangled on the New York City subway. (Luces de Nueva York/Juan Alberto Vazquez, via Storyful)
Penny is back in court Thursday to face charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. If convicted of the most serious charge, he could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.
The defense argues that Neely's death was justified because Penny was protecting herself and others on the train.
