Almost every witness who has testified in Daniel Penny’s trial has stated they felt threatened by Jordan Neely as he allegedly menaced passengers on a New York City subway last year.
After Neely reportedly threatened riders, Penny, a 26-year-old former Marine, restrained him in a chokehold to stop him. Neely later died as a result, and Penny now faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter, or up to 4 years if found guilty of the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide.
Several witnesses testified on Friday, echoing similar accounts from earlier in the week, describing their fear of Neely. Jurors also saw multiple videos showing Neely unresponsive in the subway car, according to ABC 7.
In one police body camera recording, witness Alethea Gittings recounts what she heard Neely saying just before Penny intervened.
“I heard the young man that’s on the floor saying, you know, ‘hey, I’m willing to die. You know, I’ll do anything. I’ll go to jail. I don’t care. I don’t care,’” Gittings said.
On Friday, Gittings testified that she expressed gratitude to Penny for his actions.
“The guy in the tan did take him down like, very respectfully and just like held. He just held him. Yeah, yeah, He just held him. He didn’t choke him,” Gittings told officers in the footage played in court.
Two additional witnesses on Friday shared how frightened they were of Neely. One mother, who was on the train with her 5-year-old son, said, “I actually moved the stroller in front of my son to create a barrier.”
On Thursday, 18-year-old Moriela Sanchez testified that as soon as Neely, 30, boarded the subway car on May 1, 2023, he began threatening passengers, according to Fox News.
“If no one gives him water or food, he’s gonna start putting hands on people,” Sanchez testified. “He was going to start attacking.”
Sanchez stated that Neely was yelling at everyone in the subway car but hadn’t physically touched anyone.
Another witness, Kaydren Schrunk, described Neely shouting in the center of the car, making threatening gestures, and smelling of “soiled sweatpants.” She said she feared he might have a gun or knife, although he was unarmed and she didn’t see any weapon.
Schrunk also testified that Neely made threatening remarks toward the passengers.
“This was the first time in my life that I took a moment because I was scared that I was going to die in that moment,” she said.
Despite this testimony, Penny’s defense requested a mistrial, arguing he wasn’t receiving a fair trial, according to Fox News. The defense claimed that the prosecution was attempting to portray Penny as a “white vigilante” and permitted witness Johnny Grima — who has a past conviction for assaulting someone with a baseball bat — to label Penny a “murderer,” even though he isn’t charged with or accused of murder.
