Marine Daniel Penny Says He ‘Couldn’t Sit Still’ as Jordan Neely Threatened to Kill Scared Passengers

Daniel Penny, the 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran who put Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold on the New York City subway last month, said in a video on Sunday that he “just couldn’t sit still” as Neely threatened to kill people on the train and that he restrained Neely to prevent him from “being able to carry out the threats.”

Penny said that he was intimidated by Neely, and he wasn’t “trying to choke him to death.” He also dismissed reporting that he held Neely in a chokehold for 15 minutes.

Neely, who had a history of mental illness, was throwing garbage on the F train on May 1 and yelling that he wanted to die or go to jail because he was tired of having no food when Penny placed him in a chokehold.

Penny has been charged with second-degree manslaughter in connection with the Neely’s death.

In the video, released by Penny’s lawyers on Sunday, he detailed his perspective on the “scary situation”: “The man stumbled on, he appeared to be on drugs, the doors closed, and he ripped his jacket off and threw it down at the people sitting next to me at my left.”

Penny explained that he was listening to music and took his headphones out to hear what Neely was yelling. “The three main threats that he repeated over and over again were I’m going to kill you, I’m prepared to go to jail for life, and I’m willing to die,” he said.

He recalled feeling intimidated by Neely. Despite Penny standing at 6-foot-2, Neely was bigger than him and was shouting in “terrified” passengers’ faces, he said.

“There’s a common misconception that Marines don’t get scared. We’re actually taught one of our core values is courage, and courage is not the absence of fear but how you handle fear,” he said. “I was scared for myself, but I looked around there was women and children, he was yelling in their faces saying these threats. I just couldn’t sit still.”

A three-and-a-half minute long video captured by a witness begins with Neely already in a chokehold. Shortly after, a second rider pins down Neely’s arms. Thirty seconds into the video, Neely begins to flail his arms and try to escape Penny’s grasp. Then the third man enters to help pin Neely to the floor.

More than two minutes into the video, Neely begins going limp. Another witness can be heard off camera telling Penny, “You’re going to kill him now, he’s defecated on himself.” One of the men restraining Neely said it was an old stain on his pants and that Neely was not “squeezing.”

“He’s not squeezing? All right. You’ve got to let him go. After he’s defecated himself that’s it,” the off-camera witness said.

The man holding Neely’s arms down then let go and asked Neely if he could hear him. When Neely failed to respond, Penny released him. Seconds later, Penny and the other man moved Neely into a recovery position. After three minutes and 45 seconds of video, Neely’s body contorted and let out a deep breath. The witness who recorded the video later said, “None of us who were there thought he was in danger of dying. We thought he just passed out or ran out of air.”

The city medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by “compression of neck (chokehold).”

“Some people say that I was holding on to Mr. Neely for 15 minutes. This is not true — between stops is only a couple of minutes. So, the whole interaction lasted less than five minutes,” Penny said in the video on Sunday.

“Some people say I was trying to choke him to death — which is also not true. I was trying to restrain him,” he said. “You can see in the video there’s a clear rise and fall of his chest, indicating that he’s breathing. I’m trying to restrain him from being able to carry out the threats.”

He said his grip was based on the force Neely was exerting.

Penny also dismissed the idea that the incident was motivated by race.

“I didn’t see a black man threatening passengers, I saw a man threatening passengers, a lot of whom were people of color,” Penny said.

“The man who helped restrain Mr. Neely was a person of color,” he said. “A few days after the incident I read in the papers that a woman of color came out and called me a hero.”

A woman of color who was on the train during the incident previously told Fox News she believed it was “self-defense” and that “I believe in my heart that he saved a lot of people that day.”

“I don’t believe that I’m a hero, but she was one of those people I was trying to protect, who were all scared,” Penny said.

Neely struggled with mental-health issues, including schizophrenia, PTSD and depression, according to his aunt. He had been arrested 42 times, including four times for assault. At the time of his death, Neely had an active warrant for allegedly assaulting a 67-year-old woman in 2021.

Neely was arrested in August 2015 for attempted kidnapping “after he was seen dragging a 7-year-old girl down an Inwood street,” the New York Daily News reported. He pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and was sentenced to four months in jail. He was later arrested again in June 2019 for punching a 64-year-old man in the face during a fight in a Greenwich Village subway station, the report adds.

Reddit posts unearthed by journalist Andy Ngo show that subway riders had grown to fear Neely even nine years ago because of his erratic behavior. He was also on a NYC Department of Homeless Services list of homeless people who had dire needs, the “Top 50” list, according to the New York Times.

Penny is next set to appear in court on July 17.