Lynching a Good Samaritan

New York City's ruling class throws Daniel Penny under the bus for its own failure to maintain order.

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The din of protestors calling for the head of Daniel Penny could be heard from the thirteenth floor of the courtroom ahead of the opening statements. The “subway strangler,” they called him, the former Marine who put a homeless man with a history of violence in a chokehold after he had menaced New York City straphangers. “Justice for Jordan Neely,” read the signs they held aloft over megaphones.

Penny’s life was turned upside down by Neely’s death, who, until now, was presumed to have died during the altercation last May before police or paramedics could attend to him. But new body camera footage unveiled to the public for the first time at trial has complicated that narrative. It shows Neely was still alive when police arrived on the scene. Witness testimony also revealed the officers did not administer aid that might have saved Neely’s life and spared Penny from potentially being hanged, drawn, and quartered.