‘Never intended harm’: Marine accused of choking fellow NYC subway rider to death releases statement

A person accused of choking fellow subway passenger Jordan Neely to dying launched an announcement by his attorneys Friday, National Review reported.

Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old Marine veteran and school scholar, launched the assertion by attorneys Steven M. Raiser and Thomas A. Kenniff of Raiser & Kenniff, P.C.

Within the assertion, the agency representing Daniel Penny says their shopper “by no means supposed to hurt Mr. Neely and couldn’t have foreseen his premature death.”

The disturbing incident unfolded Monday on a northbound F practice in New York Metropolis. Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with 42 prior arrests, was reportedly behaving erratically when Penny and different passengers took motion to restrain him. Penny is seen in widely-circulated movies utilizing a chokehold to subdue Neely as different passengers work to carry his limbs.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and a few of her colleagues rapidly denounced New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams’ response to the incident. Adams referred to as a pause on rendering judgment till the details of the case have been identified, as TheBlaze reported. AOC claimed, “Jordan Neely was murdered.”

Penny’s attorneys started the assertion by acknowledging Penny’s involvement in the “tragic incident” and expressing condolences to folks near Neely.

They went on to say Neely “had a documented historical past of violent and erratic conduct, the obvious results of ongoing and untreated psychological sickness.”

When Neely started “aggressively threatening Daniel Penny and the opposite passengers,” the assertion says, Penny and different passengers acted to guard themselves till assistance arrived.

Penny’s attorneys’ assertion concludes by saying the mentally unwell has been handled with indifference for too long.

“We hope that out of this terrible tragedy will come a brand new dedication by our elected officers to handle the psychological well-being disaster on our streets and in our subways.”

Protests rapidly adopted information about Neely’s dying. A whole lot of demonstrators carrying indicators saying “Justice for Jordan Neely” and related messages gathered Friday evening at Washington Sq. Park, Reuters reported.

Thomas Kenniff, certainly one of Penny’s attorneys, is a Republican veteran of the Iraq Warfare who opposed Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg in the race for the DA’s workplace in 2021, based on Nationwide Overview.

Watch NBC’s protection beneath Daniel James Penny’s identification because the Marine veteran was accused of placing Jordan Neely in a deadly chokehold in a New York Metropolis subway automotive.

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