By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-11-18 14:56:42 | Updated at 2024-11-23 04:21:29
4 days ago
Marine veteran Daniel Penny told officers he wasn't 'trying to injure or kill' Jordan Neely when he put him in a fatal chokehold on a busy subway train.
Neely had been behaving erratically from the moment he got on the train in May 2023, threatening to 'kill people' and telling commuters he was ready to 'go back to jail.'
Penny, now 26, is on trial accused of negligent homicide and manslaughter for his actions in the six minutes after her chose to intervene.
In a never-before-seen police tape played to jurors Friday, Penny offered detectives an explanation as to why he sprang into action, despite initially dismissing Neely as 'just a crackhead' ranting on the train.
'I just wanted to keep him from getting to people,' the then-24-year-old architecture student told officers.
'He was acting like a lunatic, like a crazy person.'
Neely, a 30-year-old former Michael Jackson impersonator, was homeless and suffering severe mental health issues at the time of his death.
The medical examiner found synthetic drugs - K2 - in his system at the time of his death, but maintains it was the chokehold that ultimately killed him.
In a never-before-seen police tape, Penny offered detectives an explanation into why he sprang to action, despite initially dismissing Neely as 'just a crackhead' ranting on the train
Penny held Neely in a chokehold on the subway car floor while others assisted on May 1, 2023
Neely was a Michael Jackson impersonator who was known and recognized in Times Square (pictured in 2009)
'I'm not trying to, like, kill the guy. I'm just trying to de-escalate the situation,' Penny insisted.
'I wasn't trying to injury him. I'm just trying to keep him from hurting anybody else. He's threatening people.'
Dr. Cynthia Harris of the City Medical Examiner's Office testified on Friday that there 'are no alternative reasonable explanations for Mr Neely's death.'
The court had previously heard Neely still had a pulse when police first arrived on the scene, and that at least one officer reported still feeling a heartbeat.
They issued two doses of Narcan - the treatment used to reverse a drug overdose - once before starting CPR and again after.
One officer revealed he didn't advise any of his team to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation because Neely appeared 'dirty' and he didn't want his team to risk catching a disease, or being vomited on if he were to regain consciousness.
Dr Harris reportedly said it 'made perfect sense' that Neely would still have a pulse in those first few moments, despite testifying that he likely became functionally brain injured within minutes of the six-minute chokehold beginning.
'This is an asphyxial death. So in asphyxial death, for lack of a better way of putting it, the brain dies first.'
Daniel Penny , 26, will face a jury of his peers in a mammoth trial expected to take six weeks, to determine whether he is guilty of negligent homicide and manslaughter
NYPD officers on attempt to revive Jordan Neely as he lies on the floor of an F train on May 1
In some cases, a pulse can be felt for up to 10 minutes after the brain dies, she said, and indicated Neely's heart was functioning normally up until he died.
The defense argued that Dr Harris made her determination even before the toxicology report had been completed, but she maintained that the drugs in Neely's system do not change her opinion.
She said even if Neely had 'enough fentanyl in his system to put down an elephant', she would still believe his death was caused by the chokehold.
Prosecutors claim Penny acted recklessly and went too far in his efforts to protect other passengers.
They have repeatedly stated that the charges he is facing do not require intent to kill.
The trial continues.
