A judge announced Wednesday that the former Marine who put a Black homeless man in a fatal chokehold on a New York City subway last year will be put to trial in October.
On May 1, Daniel Penny, 24, held Jordan Neely, 30, in a chokehold on the floor of a subway until his body went limp. Two others also helped restrain Neely, who was pronounced dead on scene.
The encounter was captured in a three-minute video by witness and journalist Juan Alberto Vazquez, who said that Neely had been yelling about not having food or water just prior to Penny placing him in a chokehold for close to 15 minutes.
“The man got on the subway car and began to say a somewhat aggressive speech, saying he was hungry, he was thirsty, that he didn’t care about anything, he didn’t care about going to jail, he didn’t care that he gets a big life sentence,” Vazquez told NBC New York. “That ‘It doesn’t even matter if I died.’”
Neely was well known by locals for his Michael Jackson impersonation and dancing, which he would perform on subways, The New York Times reported. The incident sparked outrage from the public, with many linking his death to a reflection of larger issues involving race, homelessness, crime and mental illness.
The New York Office of Chief Medical Examiner ruled that Neely’s death was a homicide caused by “compression of neck (chokehold).”
Protests erupted in a subway station and on the streets of New York shortly after Neely’s killing, with people demanding justice and accountability.
In a statement last year, Penny’s lawyers claimed that Neely had been “aggressively threatening” Penny and others on the subway, and that Penny acted in self-defense. Vazquez said that Neely was being “aggressive,” but not specifically threatening and did not appear to want to attack anyone.
“When Mr. Neely began aggressively threatening Daniel Penny and the other passengers, Daniel, with the help of others, acted to protect themselves, until help arrived. Daniel never intended to harm Mr. Neely and could not have foreseen his untimely death,” the attorneys said.
Penny was later charged with manslaughter in the second degree, and pleaded not guilty. His trial will begin on Oct. 8 and will go on for four to six weeks, Judge Max Wiley said, according to ABC News.
If found guilty for the second-degree manslaughter charges, Penny could face up to 25 years in prison. Attorneys for Neely’s family appeared to suggest that the manslaughter charges were not severe enough, and called for Penny to be charged with murder.
“Is that enough for someone who choked somebody out on a train and took their life?” Lennon Edwards, one of the Neely family attorneys, said at the news conference last year after the charges were announced. “Justice looks like a conviction for murder. We need a full cup of justice here, and we’re asking for us to continue to press forward until that happens.”