The Marine veteran who was seen in a video putting Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold on a New York City subway surrendered to the police department Friday to face criminal charges.
Daniel Penny, 24, was seen arriving at the 5th Precinct stationhouse in Manhattan shortly after 8 a.m. ET. Officials said Thursday that he is expected to be charged with second-degree manslaughter.
He will be arraigned in Manhattan criminal court, the district attorney’s office said.
Thomas Kenniff, an attorney for Penny, said his client voluntarily turned himself in “with the sort of dignity and integrity that is characteristic of his history of service to this grateful nation.”
“The case will now go to court and we expect an arraignment will occur this afternoon. The process will unfold from there,” he told reporters.
Cellphone video partly captured the May 1 incident on a northbound F train. It showed Penny on the ground holding Neely, 30, in a chokehold after an altercation.
Neely was unconscious when officers arrived and pronounced dead at the hospital, police said. The city medical examiner’s office said he died of “compression of neck (chokehold)” and that the manner was homicide.
Penny was briefly taken into custody after the incident and released.
Juan Alberto Vazquez, a witness who filmed the cellphone footage, told NBC New York that Neely got on the train 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.” Neely was homeless and described as a subway busker who performed dance routines in costume as Michael Jackson.
Neely was held in the chokehold for about 15 minutes, Vazquez said. The video showed two other subway riders appearing to help restrain him.
Penny’s lawyers also said that Neely was “aggressively threatening” passengers and Penny never intended to harm him. Neely’s family, however, rejected that account.
“It is a character assassination and a clear example of why he believed he was entitled to take Jordan‘s life,” said the family’s attorneys, Donte Mills and Lennon Edwards.
They also said Neely suffered from mental illness “which began at age 14 when he experienced the brutal murder of his mother.”
A police spokesman said that multiple 911 calls came in about a physical fight and that Neely and Penny were involved in a “verbal dispute” that “escalated into a physical altercation.”
“During the physical struggle between the two males, the 30-year-old male lost consciousness,” the spokesman previously said.
Neely’s death sparked a national debate, with people denouncing vigilantism and some politicians demanding officials do more to address homelessness, mental health and violence on subways.
In a statement on Friday, the Rev. Al Sharpton urged the justice system to send “a clear, loud message that vigilantism has never been acceptable.”
“Being homeless or Black or having a mental health episode should not be a death sentence,” he said, calling the charges against Penny “step one in justice.”
Sharpton, the host of MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation,” is expected to deliver the eulogy at Neely’s funeral next Friday in Harlem.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Jonathan Dienst, Andrew Siff and Marc Santia contributed.
