MANHATTAN (CN) — Fresh after choking an unruly straphanger to death on a New York City subway last year, Daniel Penny was initially relaxed when he recounted the incident to New York Police Department detectives at the Fifth Precinct.
Jordan Neely, the 30-year-old Black man Penny killed on a northbound F train on May 1, 2023, was “doing the thing that crackheads do,” Penny said, according to a video of his initial interview with detectives that was played to a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday.
It was one of several clips prosecutors showed the court Thursday as they sparred with defense attorneys over what will be admissible at Penny’s manslaughter trial.
Penny’s lawyers are trying to keep some of his statements out of evidence, claiming that they were made after police officers failed to inform him that he was free to not cooperate. Prosecutors argue that Penny was well aware of his rights and that he made the statements as a willing cooperator.
The hearing was likely the final one until jury selection in Penny’s trial, set to begin on Oct. 21.
“The guy came in, he whipped his jacket off,” Penny told detectives in the clip. He added that Neely was uttering, “I’m gonna kill everybody. I could go to prison forever, I don’t care.”
That’s when Penny, now 25, said he intervened by grabbing Neely around the neck and putting him in a chokehold, which he said he held for several minutes until NYPD officers boarded the train in Manhattan.
Neely was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. The city’s medical examiner ruled his cause of death was compression of the neck.
While at the precinct for questioning, Penny appeared carefree at first. The video showed him bonding with one officer over their shared military experience.
“I treated him as a witness,” NYPD Detective Michael Medina, one of the two detectives who interviewed Penny at the precinct, testified Thursday as prosecutors rolled the footage. “I didn’t have any further information to treat him any other way.”
But Penny’s demeanor gradually changed as the detectives continued to prod. The Long Island native insisted that he was “not a confrontational guy,” stressing at one point: “I’m not trying to kill the guy.”
“I wasn’t trying to injure him,” Penny said in the clip. “I’m just trying to keep him from hurting everyone else. That’s what we learned in the Marine Corps. That’s what you guys learn today as police officers.”
Eventually, Penny asked how long the questioning was going to take. He said he was studying architecture and engineering at the New York City College of Technology and had to get to class.
When the detectives said they weren’t sure, Penny appeared to get increasingly anxious. He asked for an attorney.
Prosecutors also showed the court bodycam footage from several responding NYPD cops who asked Penny questions at the scene. As the officers boarded the F train, the videos showed Penny standing over Neely’s limp body.
“I just put him out,” Penny told officers, making a choking gesture with his arms.
The clips continued to roll, showing the chaotic scene on the train car as officers tended to Neely. One officer shouted he felt a pulse, and another yelled for Narcan.
An additional officer sifted through Neely’s jacket — looking for weapons, he told the court — but found only a muffin in the front pocket. After a few minutes, cops took turns administering CPR to Neely, who remained unconscious.
Penny sat at the defense table Thursday draped in a dark gray suit and purple tie. His eyes stayed locked on the court monitor as the videos played in front of him, his expression remaining stoic throughout the roughly five-hour hearing — even as he was heckled by a member of the gallery.
“Do you feel like a man?” the heckler shouted at Penny.
Penny’s attorney Thomas Kenniff argued that, throughout the footage, officers never informed his client that he was free to leave the scene. What prosecutors say was cooperation, Kenniff claims was a de facto arrest.
“It would have been apparent to anyone in that situation that Mr. Penny was not simply free to walk away,” Kenniff said.
New York Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley said that he could issue a ruling on the admissibility of Penny’s on-camera statements as soon as Friday.
In the meantime, the footage shown at the hearing won’t be released to the broader public, Wiley said Thursday.
Fielding a press request from the bench, Wiley ruled that he would prefer not publishing the clips until trial since there’s a chance that he’ll rule them inadmissible anyway. Until then, he said he’d rather not taint the jury pool.
As Americans are already mulling divisive cultural issues like public safety, racism and criminal justice heading into election season, Penny’s trial is expected to be an especially polarizing one.
The ex-Marine has been hailed in certain right-wing circles as a good Samaritan. Meanwhile, some progressive advocates have denounced Penny’s behavior as an act of racist vigilantism, comparing him to the likes of Kyle Rittenhouse.
Penny is charged with second-degree manslaughter and faces a maximum of five to 15 years in prison if convicted.