On May 1, 2023, Daniel Penny became a national lightning rod when he placed Jordan Neely, a homeless black man widely described as “threatening” by witnesses, into a chokehold on the New York City subway.
Neely was shortly thereafter pronounced dead, and the case quickly became a political Rorschach test, with Penny seen by some as a hero and by others as a racially motivated murderer. Eighteen months later, Penny is on trial for manslaughter. Last Thursday, prosecutors showed the jury video of Penny’s initial interrogation by police. It gets to the heart of why this case has captivated America.
A few hours after the incident on the F train, Daniel Penny accompanied police back to their Chinatown headquarters. In footage of his interrogation, obtained by The Free Press, Penny seems to think he’s at the police precinct to tell them about the “lunatic” who “started threatening people” on the train. The conversation starts out in a friendly tone. But as the questioning continues, Penny appears to realize that these aren’t just any police officers. And they don’t consider him a Good Samaritan, but a criminal suspect.
