Exclusive: An Oregon Army National Guard veteran who helped thwart a terrorist attack on a train from Amsterdam to Paris in 2015 said the manslaughter trial of New York Marine Corps veteran Daniel Penny made him a “person who would step up.” This is a worrying warning for anyone thinking that
Oregon congressman-elect Alec Skarlatos said he, along with two friends and another good Samaritan, disarmed and subdued Moroccan terrorist Ayoub el-Khazaani, who opened fire on the crowded Thalys train. He said he believes the country's self-defense laws are more lenient than those in the United States. empire state.
“Do you want people to stand up and try to do the right thing? Or if he's convicted, that's going to scare a lot of people and blue states into not doing anything. “Yes,” he said.
The problem in blue states, he warned, is a clear double standard with politicized prosecutors picking winners and losers.
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Gen. Paul J. Selva thanks Army Special Forces Alek Skarlatos, Air Force Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, and Anthony Sadler attend a ceremony honoring them at the Pentagon on September 17, 2015. (Department of Defense photo: Army Staff Sgt. Sean K. Harp/Released)
“People who live in Oregon, Washington, California, New York are worried that something like this could happen to them, especially if they think of themselves as stepping up. I think it is,” he said. Fox News Digital. “For example, in our terrorist attack… it happened on a continent without guns. I couldn't carry it. We had to fight this guy with our bare hands.”
Skarlatos sees a two-tiered judicial system in Democratic strongholds. Penny remained at the scene and spoke with police, but was not arrested until 11 days later when the same Manhattan district attorney's office that prosecuted the controversial New York v. Trump case indicted Penny on manslaughter charges.
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Daniel Penny leaves the Manhattan Supreme Criminal Court building on Monday, December 2, 2024 in New York City. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
No one deserves to die for having a mental health episode, but at the same time, no one should have to put up with a drug-addicted schizophrenic threatening their life.
“Hunter Biden will also be pardoned today,” Skarlatos said. “There's all sorts of double standards when it comes to how blue states and Democratic leadership enforce their laws.”
He also said he believed Mr. Penny acted with others in mind and intervened to stop an apparent threat before it got out of hand.
“If you look at his interrogation with the police after the fact, he would have thought that what he did was right, that the police would take Neely into custody and that everything would be fine,” he said.
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Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler pose in Paris after a failed attack on a French train on August 23, 2015. (U.S. Air Force photo/Sgt. Ryan Crane)
On August 21, 2015, Skarlatos and two childhood friends, Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler, were on a train bound for Paris when El Khazzani jumped out of the bathroom and opened fire.
The now-convicted terrorist was in possession of an AK-47 rifle, an automatic pistol, a box cutter knife, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. The rifle jammed and they took the gun away. By then, El Khazzani had shot and killed one passenger, seriously slashed Mark Moogarian, an American expatriate living in France who had first engaged the gunman, and had also slashed Mr. Stone multiple times.
“When we managed to get him under control and bend him over something like a table on the train, he was still fighting to get away, so I just told him, ‘Stop resisting. I just said, 'Stop resisting.' And he didn't, so I put the gun to the back of his head and pulled the trigger, and it was completely empty.”
Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler attend a parade to honor the three men who stopped a gunman on a Paris-bound passenger train on September 11, 2015 in Sacramento, California. (AP)
When Stone, who was about to lose his thumb, choked him, Skarlatos instead cracked his head open with the butt of his rifle.
The former Oregon National Guard sniper said he was initially afraid to tell French authorities.
“In fact, I asked the American FBI, who interviewed me the next morning, whether that was a problem for France,” he said. “And they said, no, this is almost terrorism. I told them that when I was questioned.”
In 2015, the three childhood friends received France's highest award, the Legion d'Honneur. Skarlatos was also awarded the Army Soldier's Medal at a ceremony at the Pentagon. Stone later said his medical training helped save the life of the fourth passenger, Moogarian, and was awarded the Airman Medal and Purple Heart.
Upon their return, all three were invited to the White House. In 2018, he played himself in Clint Eastwood's film “15:17 to Paris,'' which was based on his memoir.
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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)
Penny's case has attracted national attention since the 26-year-old military veteran was arrested on charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in May 2023.
He put Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with schizophrenia and synthetic marijuana, in a headlock to stop a terror-inducing explosion inside a Manhattan subway car.
Neely had an active arrest warrant at the time, had a history of violent attacks, and witnesses feared for his life as Neely screamed that he had killed someone and was not afraid of going back to prison. He testified that he felt it.
Penny's defense argued that the restraint was a justified use of force and that it was not the only factor in Neely's death. Prosecutors have accused Mr. Penny of overreach.
Screenshot of bystander video showing Jordan Neely being strangled on the New York City subway. (Luces de Nueva York/Juan Alberto Vazquez, via Storyful)
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If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.
Mr. Skarlatos was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives last month. He said that once he takes office, he will oppose restrictive gun laws and want to ensure people have the opportunity to protect themselves.
“The word on the street is that the Democrats are going to introduce a ton of gun control legislation. As a gun owner and someone who survived in France, it's a great cause for me,” he said.
FOX News' Ashley Papa and Stephen Solace and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
